The Great Escape
by Narutoscreed
Summary: Sirius escapes Azkabahn years earlier, knowing that he's innocent. Coming back to the real world he learns how deep the betrayal was and kidnaps his godchild and escapes to a safe place on the other side of the world. non yaoi, mentoring only.
1. Chapter 1

The large black dog gazed into the swirling eddies of water caused by the raging seas of the Northern Atlantic washing against the stones of the dock area

The Great Escape

Chapter 1

Authors notes – well for those people who're following my other stories, I have no excuse as to why I wrote this and not update the others. Trust me they're in the works. This was just a plot bunny that wouldn't go away, in fact it visited me at midnight and beat me over the head with about three or four chapters worth of ideas. Sleep? What's that? I didn't get any last night so decided to put it down in electronic form before I lost it.

The large black dog gazed with unusually intelligent eyes into the swirling eddies of water caused by the raging seas of the Northern Atlantic washing against the stones of the dock area. So far he'd been inordinately lucky, no one had seen him to ask just what such a large dog was doing in such a bleak inaccessible place and everything was going smoothly, well as smoothly as anything had gone for him in the last five years what with the war and everything else.

Looking back at the dark water he just knew it was going to be icy cold, but he really didn't have any other options, it was either this or learn to fly, and his body just wasn't built for it. Reaching out tentatively he allowed his paw to trail into the water.

'Merlins balls!! That's bloody colder than the nether rings of Hades!' he whined as he thought about his earlier understatement shaking as much of the frigid liquid from his limb as he could. There was a chance that just getting into the water alone would kill him, but again, where were the other options? He'd tried to book a nice cruise from the island prison and they wouldn't return his call, 'Some people!' he snorted.

'Well, nothing else for it…' he thought, pacing away from the edge of the stone platform jutting out into the icy arctic waters. Turning to face the water he steeled himself, taking a tentative step he began to move faster and faster, 'Come on, you can do this. Yeah, that's the way just a little more,' Unfortunately his mind was saying yes, but the instincts in his body were telling him a totally different thing when his rear legs folded under him and he skidded to a halt looking down into the water while a few pebbles tumbled over the edge and disappeared into the frothy water beating futilely against the stone bulwark of Azkabahn prison.

Looking around carefully the dog of indeterminate breed sought any sign that his disappearance from his cell had been discovered. So far he'd been lucky, inordinately so, if he was honest with himself. Who knew that animagii were almost totally immune to the effects of dementors? Who knew that the ministry was so sure that the dementors were so effective that they felt it was only necessary to place the most rudimentary locks on the cells? I mean, how could someone under the effects of the dementors, and possessing no wand even utilize a high enough powered Alohamora to be able to open the door? Normally they would have been right, for nearly two years he'd been unable to even think about such a thing, even taking his next breath had seemed to be too much effort at times, and others it had hardly seemed worthwhile.

Of course if he hadn't spontaneously transformed that first time he never would have figured out that his animagus form lessened the effect the dementors had on him. In fact he'd still be lying on the floor of his cell feeling the guilt of convincing Lily and James that using Pettigrew as their 'Secret Keeper' would be a better, less obvious choice than he could ever be. It'd taken eight months for him to recover enough, without potions or chocolate to aid him, so that he could think clearly and comprehend that he was only responsible for convincing them of his idea, the betrayal had been all on the part of that slimy rat. Shortly after that he'd remembered the actions of his so called friends and colleagues, people who'd known him all his life, from school and from the 'Order' couldn't wait to abandon him, condemn him and then watch him rot for a crime he hadn't committed.

The biggest betrayal of all, as far as he was concerned had been the leader of the 'Order of the Phoenix', Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, a man with so many titles he didn't know what to do with them all. A veteran of two wars against Dark Lords, a master of political infighting and intrigue, a tactical and strategic genius and a man that knew Sirius both inside and out. He'd known the forces that shaped the youth that'd been a part of the Marauders, and the struggles he'd overcome to become his own man despite the Black families best efforts to turn him into as big a mudblood hating bastard as they were. So if any one should have fought for him, for his freedom then it should have been Albus. But the old man had just watched coldly as the Minister had sentenced him to life in the vilest prison known to mankind, the twinkle ominously absent from his faded blue eyes.

It'd taken another couple of months before the anger at his treatment had grown sufficiently for him to wish to do anything about it. First things first, he needed to escape from the prison. Nothing else mattered until he'd managed to do that small feat. He'd actually found it much easier to do than he would ever have thought possible, not that he wasn't thanking the ministry for their short-sightedness. Aside from the dementors, there wasn't really much in the way of security, just normal anti-apparition, anti-portkey along with some rather potent wards that made the prison unplottable for anyone, muggle or wizard included. The only human presence on the island was a ten man auror contingent that rarely stirred from their warded chambers, if he was lucky it could be as long as a week before they even discovered he was missing.

So here he stood on a slab of rock jutting out into the sea, while the imposing, angular bulk of the prison rose up behind him formed of the dark basalt that had risen from the sea bed untold millennia before. The only access to where he stood was from the stairs that rose three stories and terminated with a heavy iron bound oak door. That'd been the biggest risk in his escape, a dog might go unnoticed, but he couldn't shift the door in his canine form and had to return to human for a dangerous, nerve-wracking thirty seconds. He just knew that there was a good chance the dementors had noted his presence then and would eventually come to investigate, when they did he'd have to be gone, not even his animal form would save him if they discovered a living animal on the dock, they'd soon rectify that situation.

It seemed he'd waited too long when the door above him crashed open, whirling to see what was coming his padded feet lost traction on the sea-spray slickened stone and his legs flailed as he fell sideways. Landing half on and half off the dock the blow knocked most of the wind from his lungs as he slid into the icy water with a startled yelp before the turbulence grabbed his body and pulled him under and ground him into the unyielding rock forcing even more air from his protesting lungs. WThe darkness engulfed him as the water swirled every which way turning about and disorienting him pounding, feeling his limbs rend and then like a cork he came to the surface as the relentless pushing reversed and just as quickly pulled him out to sea. Gasping and wheezing as he fought to stay on the surface he soon realized that if he didn't begin to swim away from the prison then he'd soon freeze to death, or drown, at the moment he figured he had a fifty-fifty chance of going either way and somewhere in the middle the slimmest sliver of a hope that he'd survive long enough to be able to apparate out of this hellish situation.

Struggling to paddle against the ocean he cursed whoever had designed the body he currently possessed, a body that was definitely not designed with these conditions in mind. He needed to be in his human form so badly, but then he might as well sign his death warrant if he did, in the chaotic moments after he'd ended up in the sea he'd been able to see the dock where he'd been standing just a short half minute before and could see the dark shrouded figures of the soul sucking denizens of Azkabahn moving agitatedly along the width of the dock as they sought some sign of the human they'd sensed. With renewed vigour he struggled onwards and away to his only hope of freedom, either in life or death.

'How long? How far?' his mind asked as he struggled on, looking back he could see the black rock plinth that rose from the tumultuous storm swept sea and felt that he hadn't moved very far at all, even though he could no longer see the dock. Not nearly far enough as he hadn't felt any lessening in the pressure of the wards at all, his body was becoming numb even as he expended his magic in a vain attempt to thwart the icy fingers of death, he pushed onwards willpower alone driving him into the dark night. Eventually even his willpower failed him and he could feel the weight of his waterlogged fur finally dragging him under the water as he sighed the last of the air in his lungs fatalistically.

'So this is it?' an oddly peaceful thought that hardly fit the life of the man he'd been, but that man hadn't spent three years in hell, in comparison to that the peace he found in this place was heaven. He was ready, if this was his fate then let it be.

The pressure of the water had grown so much his numb mind nearly missed the lessening of a particular pressure he'd prayed for just moments before, 'Wards? Too late? Try!' Pulling every reserve he knew he had, everything inside of him even if it led to his death he concentrated on a place, scrabbling to think of a place, safely warping the remnants of his magic and praying to whatever gods might be watching over any fools such as he, that he had enough to make it, he attempted his first apparition in three long years.

Feeling darkness descend over him, his mind began to close even as he felt every cell in his body jerk as if suddenly electrified, a moment later nature proved that she truly hated a vacuum as a vaguely dog shaped void in the ocean collapsed forcing the air explosively to the surface.


	2. Chapter 2

Sirius woke up after an indeterminate amount of time with the unpleasant smell of wet fur, stale salt water and dying kelp filling his over-sensitive nose

The Great Escape

Chapter 2

Disclaimer:- In this vast universe, with its multiply alternate realities it is possible that I actually do own the rights to Harry Potter. Unfortunately this is not that reality so I must cede ownership to the lucky so-and-so that does own it. At least until such time as I learn to cross dimensional barriers. Hmm, what a concept, two of me in the same universe isn't something to be contemplated at any point and may lead to the destruction of reality as we know it. I suppose I'd better leave that research alone then and continue to be a poor person who writes for fun and non-profit.

/ Somewhere just South of the Scottish border \

Sirius woke up after an indeterminate amount of time with the unpleasant smell of wet dog, stale salt water and dying kelp filling his over-sensitive nose. Covering his nose to block out the smell proved to be a mistake, and a mind clearing experience as the stench only grew making him realize that he was responsible for it and quickly transformed back to his human form. Thankfully it was rather warm for one of the dying days of the summer of '84, as the sun baked the English countryside. The unaccustomed heatwave left most people indoors as far away from the scorching sunlight as they could get, even wizards wouldn't go out in this.

On the other hand it was a good feeling for someone who's bones had been subjected to the freezing aura of dementors for nearly three years, and he stretched his naked body out on the grass relying on the secluded location and the weather to maintain his privacy from prying eyes. Not that he was scared of much at the moment, the only thing he had to fear was an early discovery and a competent chase from the ministries auror corps. Not that there was much chance of the later as they'd be unable to gather any real evidence of his apparition, especially if the end of the trace was as deep under water as he suspected he'd been when in his sheer desperation he'd managed to apparate. The process of following apparition trails was complex enough without factoring in such a location.

Arching his back he started to stretch some of the kinks out of his lanky frame as bones that hadn't really had full range of movement for years fought against him with screaming protest.

"Urghh, ahhh, uhn," the range of sounds coming from the middle aged ex-auror could easily be mistaken for lewd behaviour in a public place by anyone walking by, if by chance anyone happened to be close enough to do so. After ten minutes or so of twisting around and various cracking and popping sounds Sirius felt he could move freely enough, not that it'd do him much good if anyone had managed to track him. Moving around freely would only get him so far in a battle since he didn't have a wand and wouldn't be able to access anything more potent than a tickle charm, or small transfiguration if he really worked at it. Any auror who came after him at the moment would merely laugh at him and then stun him six ways to Sunday before trussing him like a turkey for the slaughter. He figured if his luck ran true then he might have as much as a week before the prison guards checked on him.

Then again he had no plans to try his luck and be here for long enough to risk discovery. Standing up he looked around to make sure he was unobserved and where he thought he should be before walking into the shade of the nearby forest heading for one of the many hideouts the 'Order' had maintained during the war, it was his hope that they hadn't stripped it of all useful materials. At the very least he was hoping for some clothes and maybe some potions to aid in his recovery. If he was exceptionally lucky then they would have left everything, such as the emergency money pouches, camping supplies and maybe spare wand, but that would be a bonus that he wasn't counting on. Such a wand wouldn't mesh with him as well as a hand picked or custom built wand but at least it'd give him a fighting chance to get out of the country in one piece.

That was as far as he'd planned, everything up to now had been pure dumb luck based on the hope that the dementors wouldn't be able to detect him in his animagus form, and he had only hoped to get this far. If he wanted to stay free though he'd better come up with something a bit more long term than he already had.

The forest he was walking through was becoming denser as he penetrated nearer to where he remembered the bolthole to be, and he noticed that the air was much cooler as his bare feet sank into the dark loamy soil of the forest floor with a squelching sound. One good thing about the full sunlight he'd lain under was that it'd dried his hair out rapidly, enough that he was willing to attempt a transformation again, this was the kind of place that his animagus form would come in very handy as he twisted and shrank slightly and padded forward on four feet. Another benefit of his canine form was that its perceptions were better, sense of smell and such, though he was effectively colour blind his brain could process the information much faster so he'd notice any sudden motion in his vicinity and hopefully be somewhere else before whoever or whatever it was realized he was there. Another plus was he had doubled his speed merely by shifting his form and was going to reach his destination long before he thought he would.

Half an hour later the trees opened out slightly to allow some of the late evening sun through to shine down on a dilapidated ruin that time seemed to have forgotten. Mage sight told a totally different story to those keyed into the wards for the building, to Sirius the place looked like a comfortable cottage nestled in a welcoming clearing with the rainbow sheen of wards that again only someone from the 'Order' would be able to see. Even though he could still see them he wasn't going to just go barrelling through them and hope that he was still keyed into them fully, he remembered what the second layer of wards were set to do to anything they deemed to be a threat. The reaction of the warning layer would tell him all he needed to know.

Stepping forward hesitantly he waited for the ward to taste his magic and decide whether he belonged or not, his breath leaving his body in a happy sigh of relief as he felt a slight welcoming tug that pulled him through the last three wards and deposited him just inside the cottages door. If the outer ward hadn't have accepted him then he would have had to run as fast as he could as even if he walked away they'd still alert whoever the order had set to watch the wards for the fifty or so safe houses they maintained, that is if they still cared enough about them since Voldemorts vanquishing. If he set them off someone would probably come to investigate and make sure that no muggles had gotten themselves into trouble by ignoring the muggle repelling spells attached to the clearing.

Once inside several wall sconces lit automatically as they sensed a presence and illuminated the single room cottages interior, not that it needed it at this time of year. The sun wouldn't go down until nearly eleven' o'clock at night and it'd be back up in the sky again by six the next day. Looking around he could see that the contents of the room were just how they should be, including the food kept under stasis for emergencies. Well he was an emergency wasn't he? Penetrating the stasis field he pulled out enough food to feed a small army, and half an hour later remembered why it wasn't a good idea to rush into a hearty meal when your stomach wasn't used to taking anything more than a tiny bowl of mouldy gruel and a tin of almost putrid water at irregular intervals. He still enjoyed the first solid meal he'd had in years, just not quite so much the second time he tasted it. Once he recovered he prepared something bland that wouldn't offend his delicate stomach and then settled into a soft mattress for a few hours of rest.

Waking up later he cast a quick Tempus spell, the equivalent of a muggle glancing at their wrist-watch and about as costly in magical effort, the spell told him that it was a little after midnight. Casting a wandless lumos he checked the rest of the contents of the room and packed them into a small travelling sack that could hold much more than its outwards appearance would ever suggest. The food, stasis field and all went in first followed by the clothes he'd pulled out of a chest of drawers. Nine small pouches each containing thirty galleons were deposited into it as well, while the tenth was slid into an inside pocket of his new robe where it settled with a dull clink. He chuckled as he thought about a certain 'Order' member who obviously hadn't been told of the existence of the safe houses, since anything of value would have been stripped years ago if Mundungus Fletcher had even an inkling that they existed. Well after he left, the other members of the Order of the Phoenix would probably think that good old 'Dung' had finally discovered them, as Sirius didn't intend to leave anything here at all, and then he was going to visit the families townhouse and plan his next move from there.

If none of his plans panned out he'd have to risk visiting more of the orders safe houses since he figured he'd need a fair bit of gold. He'd just have to be careful because he was sure that at some point he was going to give his presence away and then the 'Order' would investigate the intrusions, Eventually if he visited enough they'd be waiting for him and that'd be all Dumbledore wrote. The problem was that he needed the funds badly. He'd need money for bribes at the border and it'd have to be a significant amount to overcome the fear of discovery and reprisal.

Another thing he'd learned was the fact that the bounty for escaped convicts from Azkabahn was astronomically high. Fifteen thousand Galleons was absurdly high, more than three times what the average auror would take home a year, toss in the fear of getting caught and he'd have to double it at least to get out without trouble. The ministry put such a high reward because they'd never in the history of the prison had anyone escape confinement, which meant the ministry could wave around the magnanimous offer with the knowledge they'd never have to make good on it.

Well that was until one Sirius Orion Black had screwed up their perfect record, but he was hoping to keep that a secret for awhile longer. The problem was that even if he visited every safe house and took the money he still didn't think he would have enough to buy passage outside of the borders of England not and have any chance of not being betrayed. Knowing that he came up with a rather simple plan, simply dangerous, but at this point everything was dangerous as far as he was concerned. Even breathing had its dangers to a man on the run from unjustified imprisonment.

There was one more thing he needed before he could leave this place and move on with his hazy plans, and that was to find a wand. If he remembered correctly they were the only item in the place that were actually hidden from casual observation, hidden in a different place within each safe house he began looking for the rune that denoted the hiding place, and after nearly an hour he had to admit defeat. It was either too well hidden, cloaked in some way, or the 'Order' had removed them for some reason, and he certainly hoped it wasn't the latter.

Sirius wasn't prepared to believe that his old headmaster would remove them, Dumbledore was much too safety conscious (read paranoid) to leave 'Order' members at risk like that. A reasonable paranoia since Dark Lords had been known to go into hiding before only to appear later when their enemies had relaxed their guards. So assuming that it was still here and just extremely well hidden he began to go through his options. Searching for a longer period of time didn't appeal, since he felt he was operating on borrowed time as it was, and going without was a definite 'NO!', he'd risked so much to come this far and they weren't taking him back there without the fight of their lives and hopefully the final fight of his. He'd be buried before he ever went back there. That left only one possibility, though it was a more complex spell than anything he'd ever attempted wandless.

"Specialis Revelio cottage," sweat poured off of the thin mans face as he concentrated his magic very carefully, spell casting was much more complex than 'swish and flick while muttering a few words', no the wand wasn't actually necessary but it made focusing the magic much easier for the less powerful magic users. A spell could be anything, do almost anything as long as the caster had three things, intent or a purpose clearly in mind, will or the ability to impose his will on the natural order around him, and power the sheer amount of magical power needed to do the task. Sirius had discovered that during school at Hogwarts when he'd taken Arithmancy and learned to twist the few rules of magic to his whim. That's what stopped wizards from doing things such as raising Atlantis, besides the fact they didn't know where it was, the sheer amount of power required for such a task was beyond the combined effort of every known magic user on the planet.

Focusing on the intent of his spell and forcing his will to take precedence over the spells here in the cottage was a much simpler task unless Dumbledore himself had cast them. A battle of wills ensued as the will of the person who'd cast the cottages spells attempted to fight off the interloper. Sirius wasn't ready to give in though, after all one didn't get a reputation for being pig-headed without providing some ammunition, he buckled under the power he was forcing into the spell and gradually felt the load begin to lighten as the wards began to give. On the downside he knew that the sheer amount of mental focus required to do this without a wand would leave him reeling with a migraine if he didn't down a pain relieving potion as soon as he finished. Another factor was that the Specialis Revelio spell was attempting to reveal the cottages wards but as a member of the 'Order' in the last war he'd had a hand in creating some of the wards so knew how to unravel them without being struck down in the backlash.

Several minutes later the spells in the cottage collapsed with a loud crackd, like a bolt of lightning had struck just outside and through the ringing in his ears he could hear the cacophonous sound of the local birdlife taking to the air in protest at the deafening sound that accompanied it. That wasn't the most spectacular reaction though, not in Sirius's opinion, it was the fact that the rune had exploded in a much more interesting manner. Sirius threw himself to the floor as he watched amazed at the results.

"No wonder I couldn't find it," he murmured as he watched the bed he'd lain upon suddenly catapult into the wall as the release of energy exploded revealing that the leg of the bed had been placed over the rune completely hiding it in such a mundane manner that most wizards would never have considered it. Now though, he didn't have any time at all to admire the devious mind that'd come up with that idea as he scrambled for the revealed trapdoor that hid what he was looking for. Smiling as he swung it open to reveal a heavy wooden trunk he didn't bother to try and lift it, he just cast a wordless levitation spell so that it was level with his head, then put his hand on it before casting hopefully the last wandless spell he'd have to, it was an exhausting undertaking to do it so many times in a row but if needs must……

"Adeo 12 Grimmauld Place," he called out and was quickly engulfed in a sphere of emerald green light that turned opaque, obscuring him from vision. The sphere remained for a minute before shrinking down to a single point of blinding green luminance before popping like a soap bubble.

It would be ten minutes more before several loud popping sounds evidenced the arrival of the 'Orders' response team, in an act that exemplified their normal operating procedure. To never be where they were needed before, or shortly enough after the incident to actually render assistance. An unfair summation maybe but a truth nonetheless. An examination of the premises showed that it had been stripped of anything valuable excepting the furniture, spells cast proved that no one had used an apparition to enter or leave the area, nor was there any residue from a portkey. The only human tracks started just outside the door to the cottage, other than that there was only the tracks of a few wild animals. All the evidence pointed at the presence of an extremely powerful wizard, but at the same time the person, whoever they were hadn't acted like one.

Kingsley Shacklebolt summed it up for the others perfectly.

"Well this is a bit of a puzzler, I think we're going to need to call Dumbledore in on this. It looks like someone broke the wards and then proceeded to loot the place down to the ground. I'd like to know how they even knew the place was here? Alright guys back to whatever you were doing before, I'll go report to Albus," the auror chose to ignore the heartfelt sighs of relief when he volunteered to report to the headmaster of Hogwarts and leader of the 'Order of the Phoenix'. Shacklebolt looked around the now visible cottage for a moment before the soft sound of his apparition joined those of his team-mates, he wasn't going to complain if someone further up the chain of command had this dropped in their laps. It'd take much too long for him to cast all the detection spells that would be required to find out what had actually happened and like many other 'Order' members he had other duties to attend.

/ 400 miles away in London \

The dark and musty room had lain undisturbed for nearly a decade, the last descendant of the honourable Family Black, by his fathers estimation had seen fit to have the room secured so that non family members couldn't find it. The current head of the family had never liked the room for the fact that it had held many dark rituals, not that he'd known that until his late teens but once he did, and once he'd been in a position to deal with it he'd placed runes over the portal that allowed entry and left the room hidden from everyone that might be tempted to use it. That had been the way he'd planned to leave it as well since he never intended to use it again until the war was finally over and he could have a team of curse breakers enter the room and disperse the evil artefacts that it held. All his plans had become academic when he'd been sent to Azkabahn since no one could enter either the Blacks townhouse or their country estates without his direct permission, and no one had even bothered to attempt to gain it from a man who'd been sentenced to life. The fear of 'Guilt through association' kept his few supposed supporters away, people who should have known him better and helped him.

The thick dust on the floor began to stir in distinct eddies as if an errant breeze blew through the room, though that was patently not possible as the room was sealed to the point of being airtight. One of the walls began to glow slightly as elegant lines of green began to shine, burning away the paint and grime that had been placed over them so many years ago when Sirius had first made his rediscovery of the ancient Adeo spell in the Black family library. It was a transportation spell that hadn't been used for nearly three centuries, though many of the older houses still had a mosaic identical to the one that adorned the wall of the Black families ritual room. The townhouse was too modern to have such a mosaic since they'd bought the house in seventeen ninety five shortly after it had been built, and the spell had been in disuse for over a hundred years by then. Sirius had added it himself one summer when the rest of the family had gone off to Southern Italy for a couple of months with the Zabini's. He'd painted over it so that no one else would know it was there since the mosaic was a passive artefact that was only detectable when in use.

As seconds passed a vortex of green mist began to flow out of the green tiles on the wall and formed a vaguely human shape as it became progressively more solid. Sirius learned an important fact about the Adeo charm and orientation as he appeared suspended several feet above the ground looking directly at the ceiling, he barely had time to yelp before he crashed down into the centre of the ritual circle. Thanking the forethought of the 'Order' to make sure that the potion bottles they used had unbreakable charms on them as his backpack broke his fall. In a reflexive motion he rolled so that the descending trunk missed crushing his left arm by mere centimetres.

He'd never used the particular spell before, it had been all theoretical, he just knew how to use it and the components required to create a destination point for it. Other than that the notes left on it had been perfunctory at best and had failed to mention that you'd come out of the destination pattern with whatever orientation the pattern had to the room. It might explain why the few he'd ever seen in other locations had always been on the floor. He didn't mind too much though, and if the smirk on his face had a touch of hysteria to it then he could be forgiven as he successfully used the spell. Sighing in relief he looked around the room and thanked his lucky star that he hadn't been able to roll over fully as he found himself less than three feet from the families ritual crystal.

A stunningly flawless quartz crystal that rose eight feet from the floor and was almost a foot thick at the base, though it was a mere three inches wide at the top. If he'd touched it, it probably would have killed him, even if he'd barely brushed it. The stone wasn't warded in any way, and as the last Lord of the Black family if anyone had a right to touch it then it would be him. Not that he ever would because of the fact that the magical charge contained within was diametrically opposed to his own magical core. He shuddered to think about how his family gained such a heavy charge when the colour was as black as that. The energy could only have been obtained by forcefully given blood magic the kind that involved rape, torture and ultimately death in a ritual form. He watched the obsidian sheen of the stone glimmer as a wall sconce that hadn't lit in nearly a decade sputtered to life as his presence was detected giving a better, though that was a matter of opinion, view of the room he was in and the ritual marking on the floor.

The small case at the base of the crystal grabbed his attention as his breath stalled in his chest. Could that be..?

"Accio case," Sirius barely raised his hand in time to receive the case but that wasn't important at the moment, the lid snapped back and the breath left his lungs in an appreciative whistle. It had been just what he thought it was, the Black family signet ring had been left here awaiting the return of its lord so that the investiture ceremony could be completed. With no family around he supposed there was no real reason for a big ritual, the magic ring would either accept him or it wouldn't. Though his thoughts didn't linger on the not accepting, he slid the ring on his finger and admired the sheen of precious metal as he waited for some kind of reaction. After several minutes of waiting he figured that the rings reaction probably hadn't been spectacular, it probably reserved the fireworks for those who failed whatever test the ring gave.

His family had come by their reputation as supporters of every Dark Lord since time immemorial honestly. After all Black is as Black does. Why the family hadn't been driven into extinction by the victors of all of the Dark wars that had been waged was unknown. One thing he did know was that the crystal would have driven a dark charge so powerful through his body that, well he doubted that the house would exist after the smoke cleared, and no one would ever find any of his remains.

He snorted as that thought washed through him, after all the ministry had no trouble finding the remains of the twelve muggles he supposedly killed but failed to question why there was no body for Pettigrew. Just a little finger. Merlin you'd have thought they'd have realized that since the rat was further away from the explosion that there'd be more of him left. As per usual they hadn't even stopped to ask questions, just railroaded him into a prison cell as quickly as possible so they could wave the deed around to the general public while saying, 'Well lookee here, aren't we great? We got the criminal and he didn't even bother trying to escape.'

"Fools," he croaked out. He'd admit that all that travelling was starting to take a toll on his body, though the Adeo hadn't used nearly as much of his reserves as apparating a similar distance would of. That was why he hadn't tried to apparate directly here from the North Sea, he'd have never made it with how depleted his magical core felt. The thought of dropping out of an apparition while travelling at eight hundred miles in a quarter second, lets just say they'd have to scrape the smear off of at least the last three hundred miles. Knowing the inability of the ministry to identify a body properly they'd never solve the mystery of where Sirius Black went to.

Once he'd made the general location of the cottage he'd been exhausted and he'd slept for a length of time he couldn't even begin to guess at. He wouldn't even try since he didn't know what day it was now and he certainly didn't know what day he'd managed to escape.

He figured he'd waited for his 'friends' to rescue him from that cold and damp little hellhole where he waited to die of either exposure or starvation while dementors flayed his mind and soul with harrowing images of his youth and the mistake he'd made that had led to his best friends death. Well he wouldn't wait for them any longer. Remus he could forgive since the werewolf had lost as much as he himself had, but the others would have to beg for his forgiveness and it'd be a cold day in hell before he'd give it.

The sound of the door to the warded room opening had him whirling around to see just what was happening, and he blew out a sigh of relief when he realized it was only their house-elf, Kreacher.

"Oh tis the nasty blood traitor come to smirch the name of his wonderful family," the elf turned away and began to sidle from the room.

"Stop right there Kreacher!" If Sirius thought the house elf would stop he was sadly mistaken, though the small creature did hesitate as its madness fought with the oath that bound it to the family.

"As long as I doesn't acknowledge the filthy creature he'll hold no sway over me," the diminutive figure mumbled in what it thought was a quiet voice but was actually a conversational level between two people as far apart as they were. Sirius wondered if Kreacher would mumble at the top of his lungs if they happened to be in different rooms so that he could still hear the evil words it spouted. Whatever the case might have been the last member of the Black family wasn't having any of it.

"Levicorpus," he moved his hand in a lifting motion and wasn't overly surprised when the elf was picked up and dangled as if someone had hold of his ankle despite him still being wandless. "Percussio!" he yelled, and watched in satisfaction as the small creature was thrown across the room and pinned to the far wall with the force of the magic. A little more time away from his cell and enough time to relearn the civility he'd always aspired to and he would never have done that to the poor creature, but his emotions were still extremely raw and he wouldn't be disrespected by an overgrown garden gnome, albeit an evil tempered one.

Kreacher for his part was watching the man he'd just dismissed in a whole different light, and widened eyes, meeting the wall at that speed hadn't damaged the sturdy elf but it had hurt nonetheless.

"Master is back! You is a Black, Kreacher thanks his master for the wonderful punishment. Kreacher tries to punish his self but it isn't the same. Kreacher suspects Kreacher goes lightly on hims since he fears the pain, but Master Black won't. Oh no, Master Black wills be making sure Kreacher is a true and respectable elf he will." Sirius was so startled by the impassioned speech that he lost control of his magic and watched a little stunned as the he dropped the house-elf on its head. Sirius wasn't the only one stunned but for some reason the little being had tears of joy in his eyes as he dazedly righted himself and came over to kiss the hand of his master.

Before the house-elf could give him the kiss of fealty that all Lords of the Black family were due, Sirius held up a hand in a stopping motion.

"One moment Kreacher," he'd planned for this many years ago when he'd thought he would step into the mantle of Lord freely, he'd never envisioned it like this.

"Kreacher is obeying his master he is," as he came to an abrupt halt.

"Move to the centre of the ritual circle Kreacher," he chose to ignore the rapturous look that crossed the elves face at that command.

"Oh you is honouring Kreacher? You is using him in a family ritual?" Kreacher positively beamed at that prospect, he'd given up any hope that he too would one day have his head mounted on the wall, and now here was his master not even back half an hour and already his fondest wish would be granted.

"Yes Kreacher, I'm going to use you in a family ritual. Just not the one you're thinking of. House elf, as Lord Black I release you from the bonds to the honourable house of Black…."

"Noooooo! You is cruel, where is Kreacher to goes. Kreacher can not find another family, it's too dishonourable," the suddenly pathetic creatures shoulders shook as despair rocked his small frame.

"Foolish elf, did I give you clothes?" The crying abated to sniffles as the huge eyes of the elf peeked through his gnarled fingers in hope, even as his flag-like ears rose a notch.

"No's master isn't doing that is he? Kreacher wonders what Lord Black 'is' doing," the elf 'mumbled' to itself again.

"I would have thought even an elf as stupid as you could have figured it out by now. Free elf, with no bond, I ask you. Would you be the personal elf of Sirius Orion Black, who incidentally is Lord of the Black family?" Kreachers eyes looked like they might actually explode as he stared at the man before him, house elves have particularly good eyes for that effect.

"P-p-per-p-personal elf?" Kreacher couldn't contain himself much longer as different tides of emotion washed through and over him. Thinking he'd been freed had been gut wrenching for the magical being who's very sanity and magic depended on him being bonded. The emotional roller coaster had suddenly bottomed out and was again rising into the heavens for the small twisted house-elf. House elf was one thing, a house elf was literally bound to the house, House of Black, House of Malfoy and the like, they served the family, and that was true of all house elves. On a very rare occasion a house-elf was deemed worthy, and raised to the station of personal elf, every little elfling grew up dreaming of being tied to a powerful wizard as his personal elf, tied magic to magic, a house elf grew in strength as his master did. Kreacher looked like he'd won every major lottery on the planet as he reached out for the hand of his master again.

Sirius actually winced as the house elf closed surprisingly strong fingers around his hand and kissed the signet ring. It seemed that the book he'd read had been correct and the elf wouldn't be able to pass up this opportunity. Though the book hadn't been able to explain why it was so important to elf kind. He winced again as his magic suddenly pulsed stronger than he remembered it being, the ring on his finger began to glow and he yelped yet again as he felt his finger begin to char under the flow of magical energy. Looking down he was surprised to see that his finger was in fact intact and undamaged in any way, though the house elf looked like it was smoking. It took only an instant for him to realize what was happening, he'd been warned that this was a possibility but watching the elf collapse into the centre of the circle confirmed it and he sprang back as a wave of malevolent darkness rose from the elf like a wraith as it swirled inside the wards of the room unable to leave the circle at all. Eventually it felt a pull of attraction as it 'sensed' the family ritual crystal and as it investigated the flavour of the energy contained within it was suddenly sucked into the quartz with a parting sibilant wail that grated across his ears.

Looking down at the prone form of his personal elf he was shocked to see a young looking elf that he'd never seen before. Looking around the room proved that Kreacher wasn't hiding, and he knew the elf hadn't apparated out since he would have heard that. That left only one option and his eyes turned back to the prone figure once more.

"Kreacher?" he asked hesitantly, not really believing it was possible.

The elves eyes opened slightly and looked around for Sirius, finding him they opened wide to reveal a vibrant blue colour that he'd never seen in an elf before, "You called me my master?"

"Er yes?" Sirius asked more than asserted. The words must have been good enough for the magic to continue since an amorphous cloud of pure magic seemed to explode from the air between the two and engulf them. The magic washed through the tall mans body and his shocked rigidity slowly faded from him as he felt that it wasn't a threat, more like it was tasting him, the magic he held, his beliefs, thoughts and maybe even his soul. It was possible with a ritual as old as this one seemed to be. From what he could see of his personal elf the magic wasn't moving through the elf, more that it was shaping him, he seemed to swell outwards as Sirius's own magic filled him and warped him into the perfect tool for its master.

What seemed like an eternity but was in fact probably only a few minutes saw the magic fading finally, allowing Sirius to see the elf unobscured for the first time since it had all started.

"Merlins balls!" he exclaimed as he got his first good look at the elf standing at the circles centre. Kreacher had grown, he'd known that, but he hadn't thought the elf would gain a foot in height. That wasn't the most impressive thing though, four feet wasn't exactly imposing, it was the fact that the once scrawny creature was now well muscled making it nearly as broad at the shoulder as it used to be high. And were those? Looking closer he noted that the cracked and twisted nails that the elf had once had were now perfectly formed half inch claws that looked like they could do considerable damage without actually impeding the elves dexterity. "My god!"

Kreacher looked up with luminous eyes, the sheer emotion shining in their depths let Sirius know that if he didn't get hold of the proceedings he'd probably be holding an hysterically weeping elf very shortly.

"What happened to you Kreacher?" He asked hoping that the question would be distracting enough. It seemed he was correct as the elf straightened its shoulders and stepped forward. Gone was sidling step that made the elf look like a crab at times, this Kreacher stepped forth with confidence and dare he put the word pride to the action of the house…no not house elf…this was a personal elf.

"What happened? Sir asks the most interesting questions, just like the four other wizards throughout history who have bound an elf to them as a personal elf." Sirius just goggled at what the elf had said, or more accurately at how the elf had said it, "That look you're giving me also seems to be common to the others. Maybe it's part of the ritual?" Kreacher grinned exposing even white teeth to his master as Sirius went from shocked to absolutely flummoxed.

"B-b-but h-how?"

"Your powers of mimicry are truly startling. Hmm let me see if I can clear it up for you. This form is a direct reflection of the magical and mental bonds that bind us," the elf paused to see if his master had understood him and sighed slightly as he saw no enlightenment on the face of his master, "Okay, lets try this, a house elf is bound to the family, that means there is a bond between the elf and each member regardless of status. Their bodies are a reflection of the magic and mind of each member of the family. Before you make the mistake of thinking that would make the elf stronger than me, there's one thing that I didn't mention, there's an averaging effect on the bond. That means that the power of them all is combined and then divided by the number of people in the family. Squibs contribute to that total as well, as do dunces. For the last forty years the fortunes of the family Black have been poor, while your father was a powerful man both magically and mentally, he was more than balanced by some fifteen squibs that had been disowned."

"If they'd been disowned surely that would have made a diference?"

"The only difference would have been financial, the blood of the family still flowed through their veins, no matter how much your father would have liked to deny it, and that is what the bond is based on. The children of those squibs wouldn't have counted since they weren't in the direct bloodline and spouses don't count since they don't have the right blood. The mental side of things are exactly the same. As such my personality and physique were a reflection of the twisted evil and partly insane characteristics of your family. Please don't berate me for saying that, I took that as a direct quote from your mind." Sirius was floored at the implications of what he was being told

"Since you were the last member of the family to actually be named 'Black' you were the only one who could force me to your will at that time. I would have gleefully ignored either of your aunts or cousins if you'd given me the command. Once you were placed in Azkabahn the wards there severed our bond. No not severed, it was more like there was a kink in the bond that stopped magic from flowing to me and thus I was removed from everything that gave me form except for the weak connection to said aunts and cousins and a few other assorted relatives that had no way of actually gaining access to me since I was trapped here as per the last command I was given. Over time I went insane, well maybe that's too strong a word, but I believed I was bonded to a painting."

"Oh? Which painting is that?"

"Don't worry about that master, the old battleaxe is quiet most of the time unless I make too much noise, which I don't believe I shall do anytime in the future." Sirius had to stifle a snort as he thought of the only 'Battleaxe' he knew.

"Another reflection of our mind link?"

"Exactly. Now being bonded to a painting in that manner was particularly debilitating. Do you know how much magical power a painting has? I'd approximate about one tenth that of the weakest squib the family produced. That is why the house is in such poor shape, I didn't have the strength to do even the most menial tasks without magic. A short time ago, roughly two days, I felt my magic spike and knew that you were free. But the damage had been done, not only had my sanity fled, but my mental capacity was based on a blend of yours and a painting of a mad-woman as was my mind. You can figure what kind of effect that had, needless to say things didn't improve."

"So, now that you're bonded to me alone none of the others in the family affect you?"

"Exactly. Eventually your heir will share a bond with me, and influence the bond, but only your heir and none of your other children." Sirius wasn't sure what to make of that since he had no intention of having children for quite a few years if ever. He had no problem with letting the august family Black recede into the annals of history, or the anus of history for that matter, he snorted as the thought crossed his mind.

"So what now?"

"That is for you to say, you are the master. You tell me and I will accomplish your goals," Kreacher looked up at the man before him, it seemed he had control of his emotions now as his eyes had returned to the incredible blue they'd been a short time before.

"Well then I suppose we'd better get this place cleaned up. As the last Lord of the Black family….I am the last Lord aren't i?"

"Yes, you are indeed, as the last full blooded male the Lordship passed to you regardless of your status. Now that you are free you can act to have yourself cleared of the charges against you."

"No! I'm not interested in that. I plan to leave this backwards country and find somewhere else to live. The problem is that it will take more money than I can gather easily, taking into account the fact that no one is going to give me a job." The personal elf looked shocked at the thought of his master working. "What I really need to do is clear my name with the Goblin nation, once that's done I can access the family vaults again and I'll be fine. The problem is getting into the bank to gain a hearing, I can't see my presence going unremarked if I walked down Diagon alley," he commented ruefully.

"You could try the same method of travel you used to get here," Kreacher suggested as he gestured to the wall that contained the Adeo mosaic.

"Well that would work, as long as Gringotts haven't removed the mosaic, or changed them in any way."

"I could go and check for you master," the clean-up could wait as he could tell that Lord Black deemed the freeing of his bank vaults to be paramount to his future goals. Besides with as much magic as he currently possessed there wouldn't be much of a delay in the cleaning once he returned.

"That sounds like a good idea Kreacher. If you'd go and do that for me, I'll wait for your return in the drawing room," Sirius blinked as the elf disappeared with a barely muffled pop as opposed to the normal crack that most elves were noted for. Not stopping to think things through he pushed open the door to the room he required and was half way to the desk when Kreacher reappeared a step behind him. "Well?"

"The mosaic is still there, though there are some fifty other mosaics spread out in Gringotts branches worldwide and maybe another thirty that lead directly into the Goblin caverns. I'd suggest you name the specific destination that you wish to and avert the next Goblin rebellion," the elf grinned at him conspiratorially.

"The shape I'm in at the moment, I don't think I'd mind that as much as you'd think."

"Except master would be the first casualty," Kreacher reminded him.

"Well yes, there's always that," Sirius mused, "Ah well it was a nice thought. I suppose I'll have to do that tomorrow or maybe the next day."

"What? Start a war?" Kreacher was a little surprised, he thought he had his master pegged pretty well.

"Huh? No, no, not that, I meant I'll have to go see the Goblins tomorrow. For now I've got to find myself an adequate wand amongst all that junk. That reminds me, could you bring the trunk in here?" He'd hardly finished speaking before the large wooden box appeared. "Good, I'll just start with these. In the meantime Kreacher, I have a job for you," Kreacher's ears perked up at the prospect of doing his masters bidding, "I need you to do a little shopping for me. I'm basically in no shape to continue as I am, I need you to visit the apothecary in Diagon Alley where you'll buy some restorative potions for me. Ask for the strongest and quickest acting they have. After you've done that I want you to visit any stores that sell wands and purchase any that you think would be a good match for me. You can do that right?"

"Yes, I can do that for you master," the personal elf went still as it waited.

"Well what are you waiting for?" Sirius winced a little at his sharp tone, he hadn't meant to speak that sharply but he found the title of master offensive on so many different levels, but mostly because he knew it would aggravate his family if any of them were still alive.

"I don't have any money to make the purchases master," Kreacher said admonishingly.

"Oh, right," Sirius flushed with embarrassment before un-slinging the backpack. Opening it he rummaged through the bric-a-brac he'd purloined from the 'Orders' safe house until he'd found the coin pouches and handed nine of them over to the elf

rummaged around in a box of miscellaneous wands that had been appropriated over the years, hoping to feel some kind of connection with at least one of the slender pieces of wood.

A half hour later he settled back on his heels and looked at the results of his examination, four possible choices, but only barely as they'd hardly reacted to him at all. The only recourse he had now was to customise the wands which was a highly illegal action according to the ministry. Wands were a strictly regulated device as was information about their making. Sirius figured at this stage that it wouldn't matter, he was already up to his neck in hot water so what was another gup full?

Wandering over to one of the bookshelves he began glancing at their spines, he was looking for something that he'd seen here almost twenty years ago, and hoped that it was still somewhere around. If he didn't find the book before Kreacher returned he'd have to see if the elf remembered where it was or if he could find something similar somewhere. It was another twenty minutes of fruitless searching before he finally gave up and decided to wait for the return of Kreacher.

/ Diagon Alley \

Kreacher had spent a good ten minutes waiting to be served at the apothecaries, but he'd gotten used to the way the wizard community treated non human sentients over the centuries he'd lived. Though he'd gotten a few confused stares as the few patrons still around at four in the morning tried to figure out just what kind of creature he was. It hadn't taken very long to find what his master had asked for, even though there were many different potions that would have done similar things, the ones he'd finally chosen were the least damaging to long term recovery. Meaning that instead of making repairs that the person would pay for at a later date, the Gelersons potion would utilize nutrients in the persons body to rebuild the worse damage, transferring them from places where they weren't completely necessary. Added to Focsle's Fortitude, a heavy nutrient potion that was used by sailors in the previous century to give the Gelersons potion something to really work with. It wouldn't be an instant recovery, but then, there was really no such thing in the healing professions, well other than really powerful healing artefacts that were lost to the mists of legend.

He certainly hoped his master would appreciate them. Leaving the apothecary with the two potions and without twenty three galleons he made his way through the darkened street to the entrance to Knockturn Alley and looked down the uninviting twisted and most of all narrow byway and considered that most shops that were even quasi-legal would be closed at this time of night. Severely limiting his choices, besides he wanted to provide the best service to his master that he possibly could. That meant that he'd have to provide a wand that was as close a match to Lord Black as he could, and with the link between their magical cores he could certainly do that. If there'd been even one more person in the bond he would have to go with second hand wands as he'd been directed since the second magical core would distort the matching process.

Having come to a decision the personal elf thought about the situation a little further and decided that of the three wand makers in the Diagon magical shopping precinct that Ollivander's was still the best option. The man was a craftsman, every wand a minor work of art, and what was more was that he personally guaranteed that the wand would be a perfect match for the witch or wizard. The others, one in Knockturn Alley that serviced the shadier side of the magical world, if not the darkside, Sykes wands provided a solid if not spectacular selection of wands as you'd expect they strove to provide the best they could. Especially considering their main customers were quite willing to hex their bits off or worse if the wand wasn't up to spec. The final store was further down Diagon Alley and past Gringotts, it was called Alexi's, the Greek expatriates family had moved to England almost two hundred years ago and had begun their store shortly after, they sold a selection of magical artefacts, such as enchanted weapons and scrying tools, their wands were not the main focus of their business and as such the quality suffered a little bit, on the upside they were also cheaper than their competitors and offered wands for the budget conscious magic user.

Taking all of that into account Kreacher knew there was only one option for his master and that was the old man who'd provided Sirius's first wand. Kreacher turned away from Knockturn Alley and headed back past Eeylops Owl Emporium and on towards Ollivanders. It was unsurprising that he found the door under the black and gold sign to be unlocked and he stepped into the warm glowing light beyond the doors as the oil lamps gave the place an inviting quality that harsh electric lights could never match. As the door closed there was a jangling sound as the door struck a magical bell and announced his entrance to the store, he also noticed a trace of magic that disappeared like a message spell and another ward that was tripped as he stepped over the threshold. The ward tasted his magic and then returned to a passive state.

Stepping into the quiet room beyond Kreacher took note of the room, the light from the oil lamps glistened on polished surfaces on the shelves that rose from the floor and met the ceiling. The personal elf was so busy looking around at the many boxes from which he could sense the magic that he missed the small flare of magic behind him.

"Ah, Kreacher, it's….." Ollivander stopped speaking as he raised a hasty shield as he watched a bolt of silver light slam into the golden surface. The shield held much to his relief, but it'd been a near thing and he knew that he wouldn't be able to resist another one of those. Whatever it was it had felt like pure magic and it'd struck with enough force to knock him back into the wall several paces behind him. He also knew that it'd taken so much of his magical reserves that he probably wouldn't have the power to raise it again.

Kreacher was startled to be brought out of his reverie by the presence at his back, in his experience nothing good ever happened when a wizard approached from behind. His first instinct won out over common sense and he launched an Levin bolt against the presence behind him. The Levin bolt was the most basic attack available to elves and was in essence a pure magical attack with no attempt to shape it other than to focus it into an arrow like shape. After the initial attack Kreacher turned around to see what he'd attacked and was startled to see the owner of the store leaning against the wall and breathing shakily as he regarded the elf before him with wide eyes.

"Mr Ollivander sir! It's not a good idea to startle an elf!" Kreacher admonished as the elderly man straightened up and pulled the hem of his robes level again.

"So I see," he almost chuckled at the contrite look on the elves face, "I should have known better, but it's been so long since I've dealt with one of your kind."

Kreacher regarded the old man surprised, personal elves were almost a legend amongst elvan kind, it'd been that long since there'd been one, so he wondered how this human knew about them.

"Seven hundred and sixty one years, her name was Remi if I recall correctly," Ollivander watched as the small figures jaw dropped. He wasn't going to wait for the elf to recover though, he had other business to attend to tonight, places to be and all that. "Now what can I get for you?"

Kreacher took a moment to gather his wits and then looked up at the smiling face of the store owner and wondered how he could be talking about Elvan legend as if he were there. That was before he recalled the much more pressing business he had with the man. "My master needs a new wand," the elf stated quietly.

"So, ah yes," he peered down at the elves magical core for a moment, "I believe I can be of assistance. Knowing that your core matches your master will make this a very easy process. Would your master like a custom wand or pre-made."

"How long would it take to make a custom wand?"

"Well depending on materials, it could take anywhere from four hours to two days, then there's the matter of runes and glyphs which would add another half day."

"My master does not have that much time, maybe at a later date," Kreacher admitted.

"Ah if speed is of the essence then I suppose we'd better get started? If you could expel your magic out into the room, try and make sure that it touches all of the shelves if you'd be so kind." Ollivander rubbed his hands together as he contemplated the small creature before him, this could be one of the most challenging customers he'd ever had, or the fact that the elf could do as he asked might make this an easy process as the magic interacted with the wands. If there was a match then they'd light up to his senses like mini-novas. This wasn't a process he could use to help select a childs first wand since they had no formal training and very little control over their magic. They'd be more likely to banish the wands or destroy something if they released their magic in such a charged atmosphere.

Kreacher looked around before straightening his shoulders and doing as asked, he could feel his magic as it spread out and then intersected the wands covering the far wall, it didn't take long for Ollivander to rush forward and start plucking wands from the shelves. In the end there were four possible choices, though they weren't all equal. Laying them side by side he could immediately 'see' with his mage-sight that two of the wands were dimmer than the others and he discarded them without a second glance. The two that remained seemed to be equally reactive to the elves magical core.

"Interesting," Ollivander said with a slight purr in his voice, nothing made the old man happier than a challenging customer, "It seems we have a choice. Tell me Kreacher, which would be more suitable for your master. A wand purposed to the light, or a more balanced wand that can be used either way?"

The elf puzzled out just what he was being asked and thought about it for a moment, "I think master would prefer the balanced," he paused as he played that thought through once more and then nodded resolutely, "Yes, the balanced, definitely."

"Ah, good then I shall put the other away," the man bustled around the room as he returned the rejected wands to their places before returning to the expectant elf, "Now to the matter of payment. For a wand of this calibre the price is eight galleons and sixteen sickles." Kreacher wasn't going to argue, though he knew from experience that many pureblood witches and wizards enjoyed bartering with the old man, not that it ever did them any good. Handing over the coins he took possession of the box and smiled, he'd done what he came here to do and now he could return to his master.

"Before you go, I really should explain about the wands composition," this was another thing Kreacher was prepared for, Ollivander loved wands, talking about them and what they were made of, it was even said that wand making was in his blood. Which wouldn't be a surprise as there'd been an Ollivander on this site since well before the birth of Christ. Kreacher felt his ears droop a little as his quick getaway disappeared and settled into listening, "Thirteen inches, a rather rigid piece. Very good for duelling, and curiously enough shields. Of course the wood is rather special as it's the heartwood of a Flying Rowan(1) a particularly rare tree that makes for excellent strength and durability. The core is the heartstring from a Norwegian Ridgeback. All in all I'm rather proud of this wand and I think it will suit your master very well."

"Thank you sir," Kreacher said as he made for the door.

"Oh and Kreacher," the elf turned back with a sense of trepidation, "Please give my regards to Lord Black."

"Kreacher doesn't know what you is talking about," hissed the agitated elf, "Kreacher isn't saying his masters name!"

"Of course not, my mistake. But all the same, please pass my message along. Now if you don't mind I have business elsewhere." The old man smiled as he turned and pushed through a curtain at the back of the room and suddenly his presence was no longer in the store. Kreacher peered around searching and wondered just where the old man was before deciding he had more pressing concerns such as returning to his master with the new wand. With a muffled pop the elf disappeared and the store lay empty, until the next customer.

/ Grimmauld Place \

Sirius was seriously pissed, 'What's taking that elf so damn long?' It'd been so long since the elf disappeared that he'd begun the search for the book he'd previously given up on and lo he'd found it. The small volume had been pushed back and the other books had closed around it so it didn't appear to be there anymore. He couldn't have used Accio since he couldn't remember the title, and just yelling out 'Accio Book' while in a library would have been just plain stupid.

It had allowed him to move on with his wand though, so far he'd removed the cores from all the wands and gone over the affinity process once more. Laying his hand on each component and carefully considering the 'feeling' of his magic reacting with it. He'd discarded most of what he had leaving him with a good feeling about the Oak wand that remained and the gryphon and Veela hair that remained. The book had also given him an inkling of how to make a much firmer match with what he had.

Checking the book he promptly dismissed the warning that what he was about to attempt was doubly illegal. After all what more could they do to him? He carefully twined the Veela hair around the feather once, then twice. It was like tuning a muggle radio as he wrapped the hair around the other core more and more. At sixteen turns there was a much sharper reaction as he slowed down attempting to fine tune it even more, a full turn forward and then a half turn back and he was ready. The match wouldn't get any better than what he had now so he pulled the new core taut and applied a wandless stasis charm to it so that it'd be easier to slide back into its new sheath. Without the stasis charm he'd run the risk of adding more turns to the core and ruining the fine tuning he'd accomplished.

Combining cores the way he'd just done was a banned practice by the Ministry of Magic, though they never stated why that was so, especially when books on the practice were still available. Though none of them had been printed in the last hundred and sixty years. He thought about the second law he was about to break even as the last of his core disappeared within the Oaken sheath and he was able to release the stasis with a sigh. Searching through the detritus of the Black family work room he found a small knife used in the offering of blood and carefully brought the sanctified blade against the tip of the pointer finger of his wand hand and sliced a small incision. The blood that welled out was almost mesmerizing as he watched a small globule of scarlet form rapidly before he applied pressure to control the flow. Holding the opened wand in his other hand he allowed a drop of his blood to drop into the opening and winced at the actinic flash of light as his blood touched the core for the first time. The second drop and the reaction wasn't so violent, a third and there was hardly any reaction at all, he allowed a fourth droplet for good measure and then applied pressure to stem the flow of blood, he had all he'd need for this project.

Placing the wooden shaft between his thighs to hold it in place he used his good hand to place the cap of the wand against the body and muttered the incantation that'd seal them together.

"Defigo," Sirius slumped as even more of his magic was pulled into the wandless spell but he was satisfied, he had a wand that while not perfect was much better than anything he'd pulled out of the hideout. If Ollivander had of been present he would have told Sirius that he'd just turned two cores that were a twenty to twenty five percent match for him into a wand that had a nearly seventy percent affinity for the wizard. While he could have used either wand in their original form he knew that it would have been extremely wasteful of his energy and would have given little better result than if he'd attempted the spell wandlessly. The combined wand was a much better match, though not at a level that the wand-maker would have ever allowed to leave his store, so that Sirius would be able to do almost anything he'd want. Now all he had to do was sit back and wait for Kreacher to return with his purchases and he'd see if he could make another with an even higher affinity. The elf being linked to his magic the way it was should be able to give him a better selection of second hand wands to work with though he'd keep the fifteen inch Oak wand as a reserve.

Sitting back in a comfortable chair he allowed his head to settle back and sighed, he'd been in the house for less than two hours and accomplished a great deal. Surely he'd be able to rest a little?

The next thing Sirius knew he was waking up with an almost blinding light shining in his face, squinting he looked around and discovered that at some point in the night he'd been moved to his old room and put to bed. He'd have to thank Kreacher for that later, he hated to think about the crick he'd have had if he'd slept in that chair all night. As it was he felt absolutely great, better than he'd felt in a very long time. Getting up and swinging his legs out of bed he was able to see the bedside table clearly for the first time and could see the empty bottles for two potions.

"Well that explains why I feel so good. Kreacher?"

"Master called me?" there was a small pop as the elf arrived in the room. "How are you feeling?"

"Yes I did," Sirius responded, "and I'm feeling pretty good. Though I'm hungry. What's for breakfast?" he'd barely finished speaking when there was another pop and a small tray appeared next to him. Whatever was on the tray smelled great and Sirius wasted no time in pulling the silver cover off of the tray and stuffing the first thing he found into his mouth, "So, Kreacher what took you so long last night?" Only the last part of the sentence was said clearly as Sirius swallowed the first mouthful.

"It took me longer than expected to find a wand for master," Kreacher admitted defensively.

"A wand? I thought I sent you out to get as many as you could so that I could find something compatible?" Another bite went into his mouth as he waited for the elf to answer.

"I thought master would be happier with a wand attuned to you specifically, rather than something you'd have to make up yourself master." The elf cast a critical eye on the wand Sirius had finished the night before. In Kreacher's opinion it would be good enough for an emergency but nowhere near good enough for his Lord and master. With a gesture the slender case Ollivander had placed his purchase in appeared in the elves hand and he held it up for Sirius's inspection. The highly polished box proclaimed two facts to the wizard, the first of which was the maker, and the second was that the wand was a new one, Ollivander never sold secondhand wands.

"You got me a wand? How did you get a better match than the one I made?" Sirius asked incredulously.

Kreacher looked up at Sirius with a concerned expression on his face, "Kreacher told you last night. We are linked. That means I can judge some things, such as how your magical core will react to certain stimuli since I can feel your magic through our link. Unfortunately I also share a similar mental structure to you and I fear I'll turn as slow as my master in the near future so I shall revel in my present mental faculties until that time," Kreacher smirked at the gob-smacked expression on his masters face.

"Y-You…." Sirius ran a hand through his hair as he thought about all the times he'd been amused by the same action in reference to himself he watched the cheeky expression encompass the elves face and wondered if it was too late to take back the bonding, he didn't think he could deal with an elf with the mentality of a Marauder. It didn't take long for him to conclude that he really didn't mind the elf being opinionated and he'd keep him like that if he could rather than revert to the completely servile link that other house elves shared.

Besides he really didn't have time, he'd have to head for Gringotts as early as possible if he wanted to avoid being seen. The bank opened extremely early, Goblins taking the adage that 'The early bird got the worm,' or in their case the early Goblin got the gold. If he could get in before eight he'd probably not even see another customer since most businesses in the Alley wouldn't open until nine and they had all purchased an automatic teller from the bank that allowed them to keep a certain level of change at all times and transferred the excess to their bank accounts. His mouth shut with a snap as he mentally reset himself and decided to forget the disturbing sense of humour of his elf.

"So what's the time Kreacher?"

"It's ten past seven master," the elf said as it scrutinised the hourglass that had just appeared in his hands.

"Don't call me that. If you have to call me anything call me Sirius or if you must be formal then Lord Black will do," he watched the crestfallen expression on the elves face. To be honest he was rather shocked at himself. He'd been raised with the same level of tuition as most pure-bloods so he should be as hung up as the rest of them seemed to be. He didn't know one of his old acquaintances that would ever give up the title of master if they had the chance to be called that. Not that too many of them had ever had the chance to own a house elf. "You're not a slave Kreacher, and I'm not a slave owner. I'm no sentient beings master."

Sirius learned a valuable lesson in the next five seconds as a four and a half foot tall elf collided with him and attempted to hug the stuffing from him. He learned that elves were prone to emotion and Kreacher was in no way immune to that as he cried, "You is too kind to Kreacher!" the elf wailed as his language skills reverted to normal human-elvish as he was overwhelmed by his emotions. Sirius looked down at the elf with an uncertain smile.

"There, there," as he continued to pat the elf, after a few uneasy moments he managed to separate himself from the clinging elf and was able to move a short distance away. "I suppose I'd better get ready if I want to be at Gringotts shortly," he said as he gestured at the bed clothes he was currently wearing with the vague notion that it'd probably be the only way to redirect the elf from its emotions.

"What would Lord Black like to wear?" Kreacher asked formally taking the fact that Sirius would probably ask for formal wear as permission to use the most formal title he'd been allowed to use. He knew it was pushing Sirius's buttons but after all that's one of the perks of being a personal elf rather than a house elf.

"Hmm, I'll need to make an impression if I want to be taken seriously by the Goblins, so I think I'd best go in the full attire of the Black families patriarch. What do you think?" he looked down at the elf with a grim smile and waited for a response

Kreacher looked up into the dark grey eyes of his lord and grinned right back at him, "I think you should do just that," and moments later the lords robes appeared and were slung across the bed that Sirius had vacated a short time ago. The robes were black, which was an understatement as the material seemed to swallow the light that struck it allowing nothing to reflect off whatever material it was made of. It was actually nearly painful to look at since it seemed to distort the air around it. The trim was made of sheer black Acromantula silk that worked to define where the robe ended and the rest of the world began. Across the left breast of the robe the Black family crest was picked out in fine needlework of the same type of silk as the robes trim. Underneath that there was a set of what he assumed was dragon hide armour.

It would be months before he could relax enough to do some research. He'd assumed that it was made of both the large scales on the main body and the small scales from the underbelly was used around the joints so that he could move freely. It came as a surprise when he found out that the armour was very much like medieval leaf mail, well if they'd had Nundu leather and basilisk scale. The armour glittered like obsidian in the low light of the room as he rotated his shoulders and found that it was oddly comfortable and wasn't restricting his movement like any of the other personal armour he'd worn. Money couldn't buy armour like this, he thought ruefully as he remembered the auror issued armour he'd worn during the later days of the war and just how badly it had fit. What he was currently wearing fit him like a second skin, even the breeches of the same construction he was wearing.

Sirius suspected there was a resizing charm on them and wondered briefly just how much effort it would have taken to enchant such magic resistant materiel. A resizing charm on normal cloth could take up to an hour to set properly and then it would have to be renewed every ten years. The armour had been in the family for nearly eight centuries and as far as he knew the charms hadn't been renewed once in all that time.

Like he said, armour of this quality couldn't be bought. Everything that went into the making of it had been harvested by members of the family. 'Harvested', such a simple word when applied to getting enough Nundu hide and Basilisk scales to create the armour. Sirius paused while he thought about that and was surprised when he felt a tug on his arm.

"Lord Black, you need to leave now if you want to arrive before eight," Kreacher watched as Sirius shook his head to clear it a little. He wondered just what had been going through the mans head that could distract him from his plans.

A quiet tempus later and Sirius hurried down the stairs to the apparition point, before he remembered he was going to use adeo to enter the bank unobserved. "Adeo Gringotts London main," he felt his body freeze as the transportation spell took effect and the world began to turn green. Other than a tint to the world there was no other indication that anything had changed until the scene that filled his vision changed to that of a large marble and alabaster decorated lobby that contained the adeo mosaic, the world remained green for what felt like half an eternity. When his vision cleared to normal he was shocked to find the head of a halberd being shoved towards him, the Goblin brandishing the weapon looked ferociously gleeful as it bared its teeth. He barely had time to register that let alone react when he felt a blow to his calves that swept his feet out from under him. A moment of vertigo that ended in a blinding flash of white as pain that radiated from the back of his head and then there was blessed darkness that swallowed him whole

/ To be continued? \

A/Notes:- I really hope people do like this, which is author speak for 'Please review'. Next chapter what's up with the Goblins, where's Harry and what's gonna happen, and how will Sirius get out of England? All the answers to these questions and more….

(1) Flying Rowan is a name given to a Rowan tree that grows from a seed stuck in the boughs of another tree. The true term is Epiphytic Rowan. Rowan trees were considered sacred throughout much of history and useful for a wizards staff or wand. Flying Rowan is much rarer than normal Rowan and as such was considered to be particularly powerful. Aren't I good to Sirius?

Spell list:- Those he uses and those you can assume he used.

Adeo : a latin word meaning, 'to that point' and also 'so far'. In context of a spell I've chosen it to be a no longer used version of apparition that Sirius found in the Black family library when he was young. Spell form is Adeo (destination name). The reason the spell fell into disuse is that it takes time for the person to disappear from one spot and reappear at the other, about a fifteen second delay on either side where the person would be unable to defend themselves from attack.

defigo: fasten down, secure, fix firmly; concentrate, fix upon. The opposite spell to 'Alohamora', in fact a locking charm.

effringo: to break, break open. A spell only used in the making or refurbishing of wands. Much stronger than 'Alohamora' in that it has to deal with magically powerful objects.


	3. Chapter 3

Sirius glared at the dark stone of yet another cell, though this one was much different to the dank cell he'd occupied for three long years in Azkabahn

The Great Escape

Chapter 3

Disclaimer:- Anyone who doesn't recognise JKRowling as the owner of these characters needs their head examined. I in my infinite wisdom have chosen to beard the corporate dragon and use her characters in a situation not of Rowling's choosing, you might even call it massive AU, I know I do. Lol

Authors notes:- Alright moving right along, I'd like to thank the people who reviewed the first two chapter, those who read the first two chapters and especially those who thought this was worth coming back to look at the third instalment of The Great Escape.

For those who don't know me, I've been around for a little while now and have a couple of other stories on the site which I'm trying to work on concurrently with this new project. I will get to them eventually so relax a little. Reviews are always greatly appreciated, though I won't reply unless asked a direct question to clarify something I wrote. I won't give hints to the story line, or pairings for this story. Besides Harry's only five at this point, though Sirius is significantly older, physically anyway I'm not too sure about mentally.

/ Start chapter 3 \

Sirius glared at the dark stone of yet another cell, though this one was much different to the dank cell he'd occupied for three long years in Azkabahn. The major difference other than that was there were no dementors present so he didn't have to deal with the soul sapping presence of those dark creatures. No, he only had to deal with the soul sapping experience of going from one cell to another in the space of forty eight hours, it seemed Fate didn't just know his name, it had his floo address as well and wasn't shy of using it either. He gave a snort at the imagery that flashed across his mind of Fate with her head stuck in a fireplace making a floo call and wished the silly bitch would forget the floo powder.

Looking around he had to admit that Goblins certainly knew how to build a dungeon, not like his last cell where there had been cracks in the wall through which the howling winds across the North Sea would blast. The stone work here was so tight that he doubted you could slip a knife blade between the stones, that and the cell was much bigger, big enough that he could pace if he wanted to, not that he did. He'd hardly call himself the most philosophical person on the planet but if he managed to get out of this he was thinking of having 'Fate's Bitch' tattooed on his arse since she'd kicked him there often enough in the course of his life.

"Damn, I hate getting broody like this…." He trailed off as he realized he was actually talking to himself. Of course it was better than the silence of before, not even the sound of torches entered the cell since all light seemed to come from white crystals embedded in the ceiling. When he'd woken up he'd been in darkness, a darkness so complete that he couldn't even see his hand when he held it up in front of his face, in fact he'd managed to smack himself in the nose without any warning. Not knowing where he was he'd stayed on the thin pallet for an indeterminate amount of time. To mark time he'd tried counting but had lost it quite quickly, besides it made the time go by even slower while he waited for the Goblins to deliberate on what they were going to do with him after his trial had found him innocent of attempting to break into Gringotts with the intent to steal. A trial that'd been much simpler than anything in the human world, not that he'd know, it had consisted of one simple act. A Goblin had walked up and handed him a massive emerald, a stone that he didn't even want to guess at the value of since it'd been half the size of his head and he wasn't sure there were enough galleons in all of wizarding Britain to purchase a stone that large.

It wasn't until he had the stone firmly ensconced in his grip that they'd explained what the stone was and what it'd do to him if he lied while holding it. Up until that point he'd thought that the statue before him was just that, a grotesque parody of a Goblin like the gargoyles that adorned old churches. He'd learned that it was actually the last criminal they'd tried, they'd gone on to explain that the stone had literally dried the Goblins body out until there was no moisture left, the horror of it was that the Goblin, who'd been tried several years before was still alive, trapped inside that body while being ravaged by a pain similar to the cruciatus curse. The horror was magnified when he learned that the poor creature wouldn't even succumb to insanity, since the stone withheld that release from the agony, of which it still had to serve five more years. Once its sentence was up the stone would release the Goblin while returning it to normal though he doubted life would ever be considered normal after that, though he thought that the criminal might just savour the straight and narrow path afterwards. Sirius didn't know why the stone did things that way, maybe it was so that they didn't have to find accommodation for a long term prisoner as it would remain stationary, trapped within its own body. They could use it as a piece of gruesome art, an example they could put on public display without causing too much possibility of trouble.

Goblin justice was famous, or maybe that was infamous, amongst the sentient species as being infallible and with his knowledge of the 'Stone of Neith' he now knew why. Not wanting to end up that way he'd vowed silently to answer with brutal honesty any question put to him. The first question being for his name. Answering their second question of, 'Why did you attempt to steal from us?' didn't manage to lessen their anger in the slightest. Just knowing that he was Sirius Orion Black, murderer, traitor and most heinous charge of all, an oath breaker was enough to have the entire council of Goblins on their feet and baying for his blood. It made matters worse that he'd managed to evade human justice, and they were quite prepared for Goblin justice to take over in the matter of his punishment. It'd taken quite a while for Ragnok to restore order to the council of Goblin nations, mainly because he was as angry as they were.

/ Flashback \

"Silence!" Ragnok roared into the escalating din as the council erupted around him. Sirius could see that he was restraining himself, that the Goblin wanted to attack him just as badly as any of the others, but was controlling himself with a supreme effort.

"I will have order!" he bellowed even louder, the word 'order' acted like a switch on all of the Goblins present, the anger was still there, visible in the murderous intent in the eyes of the eight Goblins that glared at him across the expanse of polished timber of the table they had been seated at. Councillor Gorgith twitched his robe back into place before re-sheathing his short sword, what would have been a long dagger for a human, and stepping down off of his seat upon which he'd been standing as he brandished the weapon while demanding that Sirius's head. He wasn't the only one to replace a weapon to its sheath either. Sirius could feel his spirits shattering as he considered this new issue, it was possible that these proceedings wouldn't go any further if the Goblins got it into their heads to administer punishment without trial. It wouldn't be the first time he'd experienced that kind of thing.

"Human," the contempt dripping from Ragnoks' voice at that word was palpable, "You stand accused of these crimes, Oath breaker and Blood traitor along with thirteen counts of murder. Besides that you are charged with evasion of your lawful punishment," a loud murmur swept the chamber at those words, evading punishment was almost as bad as breaking an oath and much worse than mere murder in the eyes of Goblin kind. In fact under certain circumstances murder was quite acceptable and even applauded, but only if you weren't caught officially. Ragnok finished his charges with a question that Sirius had never been offered before.

"How do you plead?"

"Not guilty!" Sirius replied with quiet conviction, his words dropped into a suddenly silent room as the collected Goblins waited expectantly for the stones reaction. If he'd lied it wouldn't have taken long for the accused to start screaming as the Goblin nation was gifted with another piece of statuary. When after several seconds there was no reaction at all, the hall erupted in sound yet again, this time expressing shock that such a statement could be truth. But then, it was the 'Stone of Neith' the God gifted tool of justice first used against Neith Clankiller when he called upon the Gods to prove his innocence and righteousness. In the twelve thousand years since, the stone had not been wrong once which begged the question.

"How can this be? You were sentenced for your crimes," the councillor on the far right shouted. A Goblin whom Sirius couldn't recall the name of, something starting with Blah he thought irreverently.

"Councillor Blalock you are out of order, though I will let the question stand. How is it that you are not guilty of these crimes and yet you were sentenced?" Ragnok being in close contact with humans on a regular basis over his four hundred years of life had his suspicions but allowed Sirius to answer for himself.

"Who says I was sentence?" he asked rhetorically.

"You were not tried?"

"I wasn't even questioned," Sirius answered quietly into a deadly silence as the Goblins waited for his reply.

"Please repeat that," Ragnok prompted, "I'm not sure I heard you correctly."

"I was never questioned, there was no trial. I was punished for crimes I did not commit. How else do you want me to say it?" He managed to clamp his mouth closed on the rest of the things he wanted to say about the Ministries and the Wizengamots ideas of justice. He got the feeling that the Goblins couldn't comprehend just how corrupt those bodies of government actually were. The mere concept that justice had a price tag other than truth was anathema to their kind, so much so that they never even considered it. Certainly there'd been injustice in the way the human government had dealt with their kind, as there was injustice in the way the Goblins themselves dealt with those they considered lesser races, but they would never have believed that they would deny the rights of their own kind just as the Goblins wouldn't countenance such a thing against their own kind.

This led to a retelling of the events that had led up to his imprisonment. The stone only reacted once in all that time, he'd just recounted how he'd betrayed the trust of the Potter's when the stone pulsed a blinding white and his fingers had tingled unpleasantly for a moment.

"You have just lied to yourself human," Ragnok interrupted the flow of the story to explain why the stone had reacted.

"But…." Sirius trailed off as the Goblin once again raised its hand for silence.

"The way you have spoken, it is understood that you tried your best to protect your friends, your family. You cannot take on the blame for the actions of others. Did you know at that time that this Pettigrew you speak of was a traitor?"

"No…." he replied softly as for the first time in several years he felt that just maybe he could believe the words, 'It was not my fault'. It didn't make the loss of his friends any easier to bear but it helped him to finally place the blame where it was due, squarely on the shoulders of the traitorous rat. He'd gone on to relate the rest of the story after that culminating with the apparent murder of Pettigrew and thirteen muggles. He'd explained patiently that Pettigrew was an animagus with the form of a piebald rat, he also told them about Peter's nature and the fact that if he'd gone to ground then there was no way that the coward would have attempted to leave the country. The fact that his amimagus form was as puny as his true physical form led Sirius to speculate that he probably wasn't living wild since the other rats would have eaten him alive, literally. He did live in hope though that that was Pettigrew's fate, it would almost feel like justice had been done. On the other hand he knew that Wormtail was a survivor and as such it was very possible that he was still alive and living somewhere, probably as someone's pet. He kind of pitied whoever owned the bastard since they had no way to know just what they harboured.

The proceedings had finished soon after he'd recounted his tale, and he'd been led back to his cell where he'd been fed, quite a good meal which had been a surprise. Not as big a surprise as when the Goblin had bowed to him and departed carrying the empty dishes. Not long after that the emotional turmoil he'd been feeling died down and he finally felt the exhaustion of several hours of answering questions. He'd barely made it to the bed before he'd collapsed into a dreamless slumber.

/ end Flashback \

Now that he thought about it, it was possible that they'd laced his food with a knockout potion, such things tended to be tasteless and odourless so that he could have missed it quite easily. He could think of a couple of reasons why they would do such a thing, one was that they wanted to keep him quiet, the other more charitable reason was that they'd known how drained he was emotionally and had wanted to make sure he didn't suffer from any of his recurring nightmares. That'd be too human a circumstance to attribute to Goblins though, they weren't noted for their softer side, in fact in some circles it was noted that Goblins didn't have a soft side in any way shape or form and that they'd sell their own children if they thought there was a profit in it. Cynics amongst the pro-Goblin circles noted that many pureblood families weren't above selling their children if they thought there was a profit either, but that they called it an arranged marriage.

Now he was doing the one thing he hated most of all, he was waiting, for what he didn't know. For all he knew he could spend the rest of his life in this cell, or someone could walk through that door in ten seconds and drag him back to Azkabahn. Not that he would believe that the Goblins would do that after their reaction to his unlawful imprisonment as they'd called it. It was just that the waiting was giving him time to think of too many outcomes that left a nasty taste in his mouth, of course there was also the possibility that he'd be just fine after all the Goblins had seemed outraged that he or anyone for that matter had been treated the way he had.

Given the way the Goblins dealt with dark wizards and death eaters on a regular basis it was kind of odd. A little thought and he thought he might have figured out why that was, other than the normal response to the question that Goblins didn't care about what you did as long as you were willing to pay. The other possibility that he'd come up with was that they simply took the human justice system at face value, they had with him. He was in prison therefore he was a criminal. Maybe they took the opposing view, the dark wizards and death eaters weren't in prison therefore they couldn't be guilty, which led to some interesting conclusions such as the Goblins didn't really pay as much attention to human society as people believed. Goblins seemed to find it inconceivable that you could bribe justice, after all the stone they relied upon had been around for a long time and must have some impact on shaping Goblin society. It certainly seemed to be an inbred trait that the justice system was infallible.

He didn't have any idea how long he'd been awake, and he certainly didn't think he'd ever been this prone to introspection before but it was certainly absorbing. To the point that he missed the grating hiss as the cell door opened, he hadn't even heard the clunk of the lock as the portal was unsealed.

"Lord Black?" the Goblin that entered spoke with a deferential tone as it padded barefoot across the floor. He'd never noted that before but he couldn't remember ever seeing a Goblin wearing any kind of footwear. Other than that it was wearing a black smock with a gold emblem over the left breast, he couldn't tell what gender the Goblin was but he thought it looked rather effeminate. He wasn't going to call it a her though as he might mortally offend it if he assigned the wrong gender. It took a second for it to sink in, what he'd just been called, but when it did he blinked in surprise. It had never occurred to him that he was indeed the Lord Black as the last member of his family, though if he died his sisters could make a case that their husbands should take that title. Andromeda Tonks wouldn't stand much chance of making it stick since she'd married a muggle, but Narcissa, well he didn't want to think about Lucius Malfoy with the added authority of the Black families Wizengamot seats.

"Yes?" he ventured in reply.

"Lord Ragnok wonders why you have not joined him in breaking fast," it bowed shallowly as it spoke and something about its actions told him that he was indeed seeing a female Goblin. It was the first he'd ever seen and he'd been to Gringotts many times before he'd been imprisoned. He wasn't sure what it meant when she asked him about breaking fast with Lord Ragnok, it was almost as if they'd left the door unlocked to give him freedom of movement. He gave the room another look over and came to a disturbing conclusion, this wasn't a cell. Sure it looked like one but there was just something off about that. For one it didn't look much like the room he'd been kept in before they dragged him in front of the tribal council. For another he remembered that he hadn't heard a lock, maybe he hadn't been locked in after all.

The implications were….well until he spoke with Ragnok he didn't have any idea what the implications were but given his early life training he knew how to handle this situation.

"I do hope I haven't kept him waiting. If you'd be kind enough to lead the way?" he asked in a bland tone just in case he'd misinterpreted her question.

"Of course M'Lord," she turned on her heel and walked over to the door opening it without any trouble. Sirius got up and followed her out of the room, he was still dressed from the day before, though he wasn't wearing his families armour. He'd have to ask about that at some point. Basilisk armour wasn't just hard to replace, it was near impossible since it took such large hunting parties and the death toll could be prohibitive. The Black family being as dark as they were hadn't even bothered to count the cost of the human lives lost to gain the required material for the armour.

Once out of the room he found himself in a long corridor, he didn't know how long it was since he couldn't see either end, it just disappeared into the distance. It was long enough that he figured that wherever it was it certainly wasn't in London as there was way too much subterranean infrastructure in that city around Diagon alley even if you took into account room expansion. Every ten paces along the corridor was another of those strange crystals that gave off an ethereal glow, one on either side that gave excellent lighting. It took a little time for him to note that the Goblin wasn't leaving a shadow, not even when she was right next to one of the lamps. Further investigation showed that he didn't have one either and he wondered what that meant since even if there were multiple light sources then there'd be a shadow for each source no matter how faint. He almost tripped over the unnamed Goblin as she stopped at a door and paused before knocking on the wooden panel.

Entering the room at the invitation of whoever was within he was surprised that it was a room that mirrored the one he'd just left. The surprise he was feeling must have been highly visible since the Goblin, who turned out to be Lord Ragnok chose to answer the unvoiced question.

"Good morning Lord Black, and welcome to my chambers," he gestured around and then gesticulated for Sirius to enter the room fully, "I see you're confused by the Spartan furnishings?" He'd have to admit that he was a little since he'd thought that the Goblins private quarters would have been as opulent as the foyer of Gringotts itself, which might be old but had shown the quality of the workmanship that had gone into the crafting of the building. The only thing in the room was a small table and a chair upon which the aged Goblin sat alertly watching his guest. Upon the table Sirius could see several covered dishes that was probably the meal the servitor had informed him of earlier.

"Erm, you could say that," Sirius ventured.

"Please come in. Take a seat," he gestured again at a space on the floor and much to Sirius's surprise a stool like form rose out of the floor as if pushed from below. He couldn't feel any kind of magic when it happened so thought it might be mechanical, or maybe Goblin magic couldn't be sensed by humans. It was certainly rumoured that Goblins didn't have any magic and their armies that had taken part in the last two rebellions certainly hadn't shown any sign of magical activity. They were certainly magically resistant much like the giants and several other magical species. That wasn't to say that Goblins couldn't utilize magic, they were indeed famous for the wards and protections that guarded their banks, but those were not true magic in the sense the power to run them didn't come from the creatures themselves. They were runic constructs, and as such were much more powerful than anything a wizard or witch could produce with their magic, unless they too used runes.

Runes assisted in the manipulation of nature magic, whereas wizards used their own stores of internal magic. In that sense wizards and witches were an offshoot of the human species. A mutation that had developed an ability to generate magic faster than other living creatures and to a certain extent to store that energy. This gave them an advantage when it came to direct manipulation of magic and thus was a survival mechanism, much like claws on a tiger.

Sirius watched the Goblin carefully as it again gestured towards the seat and taking a chance that if the Goblins had meant to harm him then he'd have already been harmed. He certainly wouldn't be able to defend himself without his wand or armour.

"Um, might I venture to ask a few questions?"

"Certainly Lord Black, I am at your disposal," the Goblin answered. Sirius wasn't sure he liked the expression on the Goblins face, it could be a sneer, or a smirk but Sirius rather thought it might be a smile and that thought brought a shiver to his spine. A smiling Goblin was never good news.

"Er, right. So firstly, why do you keep referring to me as Lord Black?"

"You mean you really don't know? It might have something to do with the fact that you are the last of the Black dynasty, and as such you are regarded as the head of the family. With all rights, privileges and responsibilities that the title implies."

"But I was in Azkabahn for life, surely the ministry seized all of the Black family assets at that time?" he knew that the corrupt government would do a great deal to get their hands on the assets of his family, in fact he was sure of it. That was why the family had opened up several accounts that weren't tied into the vast family wealth, so that if they ever needed a quick source of untraceable cash they would have it.

"I'll admit they did try, but every attempt has failed due to their ineptitude. The last time they tried they almost passed a law that made it possible for the Goblin nations to seize the accounts of any pureblood family we liked, as long as we attempted to find evidence of perfidy," the smirk that crossed the Goblins face showed that he wished they'd been able to pass that law as they'd have become much richer, "Besides it hardly matters if you have the properties of your forefathers, or a respectable amount of gold. It doesn't even matter that you were incarcerated for three years in Azkabahn. Since the death of the last Lord Black the title was passed onto you."

A spike of anger lanced through him as he heard that, when it was just Sirius Black who'd been imprisoned without cause it had been bad enough, but they'd made the mistake of imprisoning Lord Black. It shed a different light on the subject and where Sirius had been prepared to run, well Lord Black had obligations to honour and vengeance.

"I see…So I have obligations?"

"More than you apparently know Lord Black," the Goblin leaned forward and lifted one of the covers from a heated dish. A pall of steam escaped and wafted enticing aromas across the table. An embarrassed flush rose on Sirius's face when his stomach betrayed his hunger to his host, "But that can wait until after we have eaten I think." It didn't take a second prompting before Sirius reached over and helped himself to one of the covered plates, the food was simple fare but was well prepared and with his hunger it was possibly better than any meal he'd ever eaten at his fathers estate. It was certainly good enough that he gave it his undivided attention for the next ten minutes while his mind pondered the words Ragnok had spoken.

"What did you mean by 'more than I know'?" he asked when they'd both finished their meals, "I know of all of the financial responsibilities, and there are no other Blacks that I need to take care of. The closest relative I have was disowned more than a decade ago and there aren't any other cadet branches of the family that I can think of."

"It seems you are forgetting the last will and testament of James and Lily Potter," the Goblin interjected quietly into Sirius's speech.

"James and….." Sirius trailed off as a thought struck him with all the force of the Knight bus and went off on a tangent with about the same amount of control as thoughts collided with each other, "Little Harry," he said fondly as he remembered the little tyke. He'd vowed many years before, in the time he was living with his family, that he'd never have children of his own, and that's where James little boy had come in. He wasn't one for maudlin sentiment but he along with the rest of the marauders had doted on the little rugrat as he'd been called at the time. Pettigrew of course was responsible. His thoughts went a little sour at that memory….

"Yes indeed, young Harry Potter. Whom as I recall is your Godson?"

"That's right….But what does this have to do with my responsibilities? I mean…well after the will reading I suppose with me in Azkabahn he'd have gone to the next couple on the list? The Longbottoms wasn't it?" Sirius mused as he tried to remember the list of alternates, they'd been at war then and it only made sense to list the people you'd like your child to grow up with if something were to happen.

"I suspect you haven't done much research into the current state of affairs of your old friends?"

"Well no, I've only just gotten out of prison. It's been….uh…..four days I think. Speaking of that, has there been any alarm raised about my escape?" he waited for the Goblin to nod in agreement with his figures.

"No, it seems that your escape has gone unremarked so far, a rather surprising occurrence since I was led to believe it was the most secure place on the planet. But I digress, as I stated, it is probably time for you to take up your responsibility to the Potter line."

"But he's been living with Frank and Alice for three years now. It wouldn't be right to just walk in and take the child from them. Besides I don't think they'd be glad to see me regardless, they're both aurors, if they see me they'd be bound by their oaths to take me back to Azkabahn, and I'm pretty sure I'd be kissed before they could ask any questions," he was still a bit bitter about that, alright that was a major understatement, he was right royally pissed about it.

"I feel you should listen to me before you make any plans. Three days after you were thrown into Azkabahn, the Lestrange's along with a small number of Death eaters accosted the Longbottom's at their family estate," Sirius could feel a chill travel up his spine, any story that started with the Lestrange's couldn't be good, "Lord and Lady Longbottom held off the attack for a short time but they were outnumbered and they had relaxed their guard so they were taken by surprise. Ostensibly the Lestrange's were looking for information on the whereabouts of their master and since they were high up in the aurors it was believed that they could tell them. We weren't so sure though and so we investigated, at first what we heard bore out the first reports and we were about to give up our search, after all what is the use of sending good gold after badly spent gold? Anyway just as we were about to close the investigation we received information that led us to believe that the Lestrange's had been contacted by an anonymous source and that was why they targeted Lord and Lady Longbottom. In the meantime Harry's custody was a hotly contested item amongst the Wizengamot, the list became public knowledge about the time of the attack and when the report of the attack was given our representative noted that certain people didn't seem overly concerned and pointed out that the third person on the list was hardly suitable since he was a werewolf," Ragnok stopped speaking to allow Sirius some time to assimilate everything he'd just been told.

Sirius closed his eyes and thought about it for a moment trying to find an intelligent question he could ask that would clarify the situation further. It seemed that the Goblin was leading him somewhere and with the way it was alluding to certain things he knew he wasn't going to like it.

"Hold on, maybe you could answer this. Was this before or after the reading of the will?" he had to ask since someone seemed to have forgotten to post his invitation. He snorted slightly at the whimsy of the thought.

"It was several weeks before the scheduled reading of the Potter's will," Ragnok stated quietly. Goblins aren't exactly prone to outbursts of emotion, much preferring cool, calm logic.

"Then how did the list of guardians become public knowledge? I mean the only person who can…..Oh, who am I kidding, everyone knows that for enough galleons anyone could have…."

"I'm afraid you are misinformed Lord Black," Ragnok interrupted coldly, "Unlike you humans we are not for sale!" Sirius stared at the elderly Goblin in shock, he had assumed that the Ministry held the will and hurried to say so.

"I'm sorry Lord Ragnok, I did not mean to offend. I made the assumption that the Potter's will was held by the Ministry of Magic. I did not know that it was held here at Gringotts," he paused as the Goblin gave him a queer look.

"Your apology is accepted Lord Black, you weren't to know. Oh and by the way you're no longer at Gringotts I'm afraid. You see when you were apprehended entering the bank you were immediately shipped to Bryn y Ellyllon," Ragnok said thoroughly shocking Sirius once more as he learned that he was currently in Somerset at what the muggles called 'The hill of the Goblins' without knowing that it was the seat of the Goblin tribes within Great Britain. With his mouth opening and closing he watched the evilly grinning Goblin as he dropped that little bombshell.

"So, um, I, uh," Sirius snapped his mouth shut, vexed that he couldn't seem to make anything coherent come out of it. Every pureblood knew that no human once taken to Bryn y Ellyllon had ever managed escape. Finally giving it up as a lost cause, he figured that he might be one of the few to ever leave of his own volition since the Goblins seemed to want something from him.

"Er, so if you have the will who would have access to it before the reading?" he asked getting back on track.

"There are very few people who have a right to do so, the first is the head of the clan, so Harry Potter could have, in the event of him being able to read and understand the document, been given a preview of the document. The head of the clan may read it, and make minor adjustments to it, though any changes would have to be justified before a full meeting of the Wizengamot and we all know how that august body would react to such a thing. The next person would be a chief beneficiary of said will, in this case Harry Potter, though a chief beneficiary may not make changes to the will. Next, in the event that the chief beneficiary is underage or otherwise incompetent then the persons legal guardian may have access to the will, though again they could not make any changes. As Harry's guardianship was the subject of discussion for the Wizengamot for October and much of November that wasn't an issue for us to dwell on. The last person who may request, and very politely I might add, is the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Albus Dumbledore was able to access the Potter's will, though he was not able to make any changes either large or small, he was also forbidden to disseminate the information in any way before the will reading."

"Albus Dumbledore's name seems to be cropping up an awful lot in this conversation Lord Ragnok. Is it possible that your dislike of the human race is colouring your opinion of a powerful human?"

"I'm afraid you are misinformed, Goblins do not hate humans, we tolerate you. The matter of Albus Dumbledore cropping up a lot is a matter of public record. Our representative at the meeting took his own set of minutes for that particular meeting since he had a feeling that the information that the Chief Warlock released would come back to haunt us if we did not handle it expediently. Enough light has been shed upon his actions over the last few years to lead us to question the mans motives. He is often heard to quote, 'It's for the greater good," but I have yet to hear him define who this so called 'Greater good' is."

"You doubt Albus's motivation?"

"That's it in a nutshell, you see not only were everyone on that list suddenly unavailable to watch over young Lord Potter, but a week before the will was to be read the Wizengamot ruled to suspend the will until the current Lord Potter came of age. Since it was a legal undertaking that didn't violate any rights of Lord Potter and that his financial status would not be in doubt since he would have access to a substantial trust fund until he came of age there were no grounds for us to dispute the ruling. The proposition was forwarded by none other than Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. So you see, while one instance of overt interference does not a conspiracy make, you can see that there have been multiple instances. Even your own incarceration was mishandled by your allies to the point that your case dissolved before it was even presented before the Wizengamot, Dumbledore was not known for his political ineptitude," Ragnok sat back and watched the words sink in. Lord Black looked like he might live up to his families reputation if he heard much more about the leader of the lights actions after the Dark Lord fell three years ago.

"What is it you want from me? You've made it obvious that there's something you want ever since I sat down," Sirius trailed off into silence to all Ragnok to answer.

"Put simply, we would like you to read the will, since you have been cleared of all charges laid against you, you are once again considered to be the guardian of Harry Potter and have the right and duty to do so. Before that though we believe that you should act to bring the boy into your life. As you are his guardian you are the only one who can now find him since Albus Dumbledore has hidden him away for his own protection."

"If Dumbledore hid him how am I expected to find Harry. I mean I'm strong but I'm not in his league."

"True, but you have one advantage that no one else who has searched for the boy has, including us," Ragnok reached into one of the pockets on his vest and placed a clear sphere on the tables surface, bisecting the sphere was a thick bar of red that seemed thicker at one end than the other. "With this you will easily be able to find him." The Goblin rolled the sphere across the surface and into the waiting hand of Lord Black.

"So what does it do?" Sirius suspected that it was some kind of tracking device and was proved right as the moment his hand touched it the red bar started to flicker slightly as it attempted to detect whatever it'd been keyed to.

"It is a device that was created during the dark ages. At the time it was common practice, if the chance presented itself, to kidnap the heir of a family and demand ransom. In answer to that the leader of Gringotts ordered our artificers to create a tracking device keyed between the heir and the guardian, whether they be related or not. The Gimberel as its creator named it was in constant use between the sixth an thirteenth century in an attempt to stamp out the practice of kidnapping. It was quite effective since the person who'd perpetrated the crime was often convicted to the full extent of the law unless he could prove just cause for his actions. It wasn't until the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 that the Gimberel fell into disuse as unnecessary. The crown proved able to act of its own volition after that in the prosecution of such cases."

"And it works?"

"Yes. There are no human wards that can stop it since it is based on Goblin magic," Sirius started as the Goblin bluntly admitted to the existence of Goblin magic.

"Alright, so I should track down my ward and remove him from wherever he is?"

"That would be the best case at this time. We have other artefacts that lead us to suspect that Lord Potter is not being cared for properly by whomever is his current guardian. We wish for you to rectify that." Padfoot could feel his blood run cold at the Goblins admission that Harry might not be in good hands, he'd promised James and Lily that he'd look after their son, and then the first thing he did was to let his temper get him into trouble. Once again he rued the fact that he'd let Peter know that he was there that day, if he'd been smart he'd have crept up on the rat and stunned him before he even knew Sirius was there. As the muggles say, he sighed, hindsight is twenty-twenty, whatever that meant.

"Before you do anything though, we should thoroughly plan our course of action once you have the child. I assume that while you have somewhere secure that you could keep the boy that it is not somewhere that Albus Dumbledore couldn't find if given enough clues or time?"

It was true that the Black's estate in London had an impressive set of wards that would keep out most intruders, unfortunately Albus wasn't one of those. Besides he'd already made the decision that he'd need to leave the country. If he added in the presence of Harry 'The boy who lived' Potter to the equation he'd not only have to leave the country but also find somewhere where the British Ministry had no sway. It would probably help if the nation actively disliked the British Ministry as well since they were less likely to accept a bribe. It took most of the day to return to Gringotts and prepare himself for what he was about to do.

/ Privet Drive #4 \

It was surprisingly chilly for what had been one of the warmer summers on record, the countryside that'd baked under the sun all day had been quick to release that heat back into the sky as a brisk wind blew through the silent streets of Little Whinging, it was passed the witching hour and there were only a very few lights on in the windows of the relatively new town. The people here seemed to be a staid bunch, Sirius snorted as he mentally adjusted the statement to boring. Just looking around the moonlit streets he could tell that whoever had built thehomes had decided that it'd be quicker if he didn't use his imagination when planning the houses since they all appeared to be the same. The only individuality was expressed through their gardens, what little he could see by the light of the full moon.

Using the Gimberel he'd travelled quickly in the direction it pointed by using small apparition hops to cover the ground quicker. Line of sight apparition was quicker than flying any day of the week and not nearly as draining as apparating over longer distances using a mental image or co-ordinates to choose a destination. He'd covered the hundred miles from London to his present location in under three minutes, bypassing the village with his last jump and having to backtrack. As he got closer to his destination he'd noted that the arrow in the Gimberel had thinned out until it was a hard to see red glowing line in the centre of the sphere that was currently pointed directly at the front door of number four. He'd walked around the house to see it was pointing at something beyond and discovered that the object of his search was indeed within this house.

A quiet alohamora gained him entrance to the front entryway where his basilisk hide boots crunched on the plastic runner that covered the carpet in the hall. It was a distracting sound at first but by the third step it receded into the back of his head as he watched the steady needle point towards the stairs. Figuring that Harry was upstairs he began to walk quietly up the stairs, ignoring the occasional squeak or groan as the timber steps shifted underneath him. Watching the needle intently he was surprised when it began to dip, pointing almost directly down by the time he reached the middle of the steps. Continuing up the stairs, thinking that he was too close to Harry now and that the Gimberel was useless to him he began to check the rooms. The first room on the left proved to be a junk room from what he could see in the dim glow of a lumos spell. It was filled with broken toys and battered furniture but there was definitely no Harry. The next room on the right of the hall proved to be a very chintzy decorated room that was currently empty. The next room proved to be the master bedroom and upon the double bed he could see two slumbering forms, the mans massive chest rose and fell and he could hear the mans snoring from all the way across the room. The woman sleeping beside him looked a great deal like a horse in his expert opinion and left him feeling uneasy, like he'd seen her somewhere before. As they were the only two occupants of the room he eased the door shut and went to investigate the last two doors on the landing. The first proved to be a bathroom while the second was a small bedroom where a small lump was snoring upon a bed.

Believing he'd found what he was looking for he increased the intensity of the light spell and advanced on the sleeping figure on tenterhooks to see the child of his friends once more. Pulling the sheets aside a little he got his first good look at the child and blinked. The young boy who lay before him was rather large for his age, which Sirius estimated at five years, he looked more like a seven year old with a four year olds height. Meaning, and there was no polite way to say it, the boy was fat. No he took that back, the boy was huge and fat. It did give him pause though, the Goblins had led him to believe that Harry wasn't healthy wherever he was and this boy, while fat, didn't look unhealthy in any way shape or form. It certainly begged the question whether their information was as reliable on everything they'd told as it was in this instance but he'd have to worry about that later.

Something must have disturbed the boys sleep for a moment later the child was squinting up at the bright light above him the boy spoke.

"Mummy?" he asked querulously.

Sirius snorted non-committaly as he remembered the hulking mammoth asleep in the other room, it was no wonder he'd been mistaken for the woman because there was no way anyone could mistake him for the man.

"Harry?" he asked just to check something. He'd been looking at the boys eyes and become a little nervous. The boy had brown hair for a start, but that could be part of a disguise. The problem was that the child had muddy brown eyes as well which led him to the conclusion that it wasn't Harry afterall and he extinguished the lumos spell before casting a light sleeping charm at the boy in the hopes that whoever the child would believe that he'd just been part of a dream, if he even remembered the strange man in his room come the morning. Looking around the room once more he could n't see anywhere else a child coud be sleeping, so…..

Sirius looked at the sphere in his hands and noted that the arrow was pointing back the way he'd come and downwards. So he was downstairs? Maybe there's a converted cellar. It didn't take long to discount that though as he remembered how new the house was, not many modern houses bothered with a cellar so that left? Once again walking on the plastic strip he passed the stairs on the way to the kitchen and watched the needle once more swing in an unexpected direction, directly towards the cupboard door to the storage space under the stairs….

'They couldn't,' he noted the bolt on the outside of the door before he reached out and slid it back. A slight whimper from within alerted him to something being in there and he hoped it was a pet or something. Alas it wasn't to be as he lit the end of his wand once more he could see a small roughly made cot upon which lay a small child covered by a dilapidated blanket. The next thing he noted took his breath away as he looked into eyes the colour of emerald chips and just as alive, it'd been three years since he'd seen them and all his doubts about the name of the child disappeared, a fact that was reinforced when he noted the unruly mop of black hair that adorned the child's head.

"Harry," he breathed as he leant into the cupboard, his anger submerged by the fact that he'd found the one he'd come for. A small yelp and a slow scramble by the boy that ended with Harry cowering in the far corner with the blanked pulled up over his head as he whimpered in fear brought him out of his thoughts. The only thing visible was a small sliver of Harry's pale face and one fear widened eye that watched him as warily as a wild animal.

'Oh Merlin, they were right,' he thought as he leant back a little and watched the trembling body relax a little, but only by a very slight amount. He sat back on his haunches and watched carefully for a moment.

"Is your name Harry?" he asked quietly and waited for the answer he already knew. He was destined to wait for a while before there was a hesitant nod.

"Good, I've come to take you away from here. I've come to take you to a better place than this," Sirius said in as steady a voice as he could, at the first sentence the eye he could see widened even further. The fear receded a little and there seemed to be some other emotion lurking in their depths now, it was like hope but anchored by fear. Fear that this was another cruel trick and that if he accepted he'd be punished. Eventually the hope seemed to win out when he made no threatening gestures. Sirius drew a corollary between trying to attract a wild animal to eat out of his hand. The difference was that this was the child of his family friends and the thought sickened him at what had led to this. Fifteen minutes later he was able to pick Harry up for the first time and nearly dropped him again. Only the thin arms clamped around his neck prevented the boy from taking an unplanned tumble, as they tightened around him he remembered and supported the slight weight in his arms.

Thinking back to the boy upstairs he pondered the differences and decided that between the two of them they made two normal sized boys though Harry was even shorter than the boy upstairs, he was nowhere near as heavy. He drew the line at saying Harry was emaciated, but he certainly wasn't being fed properly, not by a long-shot.

"Alright Harry? You comfortable?" Harry wasn't sure what the strange man was talking about but nodded anyway, after all he hadn't been hurt in anyway, yet.

"I'm going to straighten up now and then we're going to go outside," Sirius watched the emerald eyes widen once more and wondered what he'd said to upset Harry this time. It didn't take long for the answer to be forthcoming.

"Not allowed out there!" Harry yelped hesitantly as he thought of his uncle yelling at him.

"Well I don't care what those animals do or don't allow. If you want to come with me then we've got to go outside," he said and frowned as Harry whimpered again, "Look, if anything bad happens then I'll deal with it okay?"

Harry didn't respond to the question far too wrapped up in the thought that he'd shortly be going into forbidden territory. He'd been told that he was a freak often enough that he believed them when they called him that now, and they'd told him that the neighbours all important opinion was that freaks should stay indoors. On the other hand this man was saying that to get away from here he'd have to go out there. He drew back from the man and considered what he could see of the mans face, it took a moment but he couldn't see any of the signs he'd come to associate with the Dursely's. He was getting sleepy again as he gave a slight nod, he never had much energy and the emotion was beginning to sap what little reserves he had as they headed for the door. Sirius didn't bother opening the door normally, he flicked his wand and smiled as the door opened until the smile faltered as a finger pointed in his face and voice yelled out, "Freak!"

Sirius almost bolted for the door until he realized it was Harry's finger pointing at him and Harry's accusing voice that challenged him in a loud voice. A voice that probably carried up the stairs and possibly woke the people up there. Not taking any chances he headed for the open door and stepped outside before asking hesitantly.

"Harry? What did you mean by 'Freak'?" He was almost afraid of the answer.

"You did something strange! You a freak!"

"I'm not a freak Harry, I'm a wizard," Sirius answered. He thought he'd got it covered at that point when Harry nodded, but didn't know that with normal five year old logic Harry had figured out that Wizard and freak probably meant the same thing. It would be several months before the pair finally sorted out that Harry was a wizard and Harry wasn't a freak. Sirius's mind was certainly elsewhere as he walked down the street slowly, waiting for the telltale tingle, that told him that he was no longer under whatever wards were being used to protect the house, to pass over his skin once more. He didn't know what kind of protections Dumbledore had placed to protect Harry but from what he could tell they either accepted him due to his guardianship or they were completely passive to anyone who wished Harry harm.

He'd have to ask the Goblins to have a look at the wards at a later date so that they could tell him what had been done to protect his godson. So far he trusted the Goblins much more than he did any of his so called friends, at least they hadn't lied to him. He was honest enough to add a 'yet' to the end of that thought. He hoped that they'd tell him that he'd managed to bypass the wards by fulfilling an unexpected condition of the protections, because if Albus had left it up to a 'means no harm' condition then they'd be having words at a later time. If that was the case then all a Death Eater needed to do was hire some disinterested third party to retrieve Harry and the wards wouldn't be worth a damn.

The small bundle in his arms must have felt the tingle as well since he began to squirm in an attempt to burrow further into the warm embrace of his carrier. It was going to take a lot of time to fix whatever had been done, he hadn't seen Harry in good light yet and thus had no real idea, but he got the impression that other than being thin, which could be genetic, there were a lot of other things amiss with the child. Either way he'd have to get him to the healers that the Goblins insisted be waiting for his return. He was thankful that they'd insisted now. Sirius really needed to get him there as fast as possible but there were….debts….to be paid, and Blacks are very good at collecting that which was due. On the other hand he couldn't afford to startle Harry with any strangers at this point since it might trigger a bout of accidental magic.

"Harry?" Sirius chose to continue even though he didn't get any kind of response, "I'm going to call a friend of mine. He's going to take you somewhere safe." He didn't really expect a five year old to understand what he meant but felt it needed to be said.

"Kreacher!" Keeping his voice low so that no one nearby could overhear, not that anyone would be likely to at nearly two in the morning, nor would anyone hear the muffled pop as another figure appeared on the street.

"You called?" Kreacher enquired.

"Of course I called, what else do you think your doing in the middle of this god forsaken little village in the middle of nowhere?" Kreacher didn't deign to answer that, but gave him 'The look'. Which is oddly effective coming from an elf with eyes the size of tennis balls, there's just so much 'Look' to go around.

Sirius snorted, "Harry? This is Kreacher," he got a small feeling of satisfaction when Harry actually looked and got a case of the wide eyed stares at the little creature he beheld.

"What are you?" he lisped quietly, even Sirius had to strain to hear him when he spoke.

"I am Kreacher, personal servant to the Black family, young Master." Kreacher looked up at the pair as if waiting some kind of response, and he wasn't disappointed.

"I've told you not to use that…." Sirius started to say but was cut off.

"Young Master is the proper form of address for the heir to a family, youse can't tell me not to use it, Lord Black," the elf smirked at the look on his masters face at that jab.

"Alright, alright, I know when I'm beaten. We'll talk about this later, for now could you see young Harry here to the healers?"

"Sir only had to ask," Kreacher reached up to take the boy from Sirius and much like his master he was shocked at how light the boy was. He remembered carrying all of the Black children when they were a similar age and they were all solidly built children. Harry in comparison was a little wisp of nothing. "We is goings to someplace safes now Harry. Hold onto me tight," the elf slipped a little when he got emotional and the condition of his young master was more than enough to give him thoughts of vengeance. The moment he made skin to skin contact with his charge he felt the connection between them burgeon, he'd felt strong before when he'd been linked to Lord Black and had expected a loss of power when he linked with the heir but that wasn't the case. If anything he was just a little stronger, not much but just being a little stronger meant that Harry Potter was stronger than his master and that at the age of five.

Kreacher looked thoughtful for a moment as he pondered the significance of that in the long-term. If he was correct and Harry matured like other wizards then there was going to come a time when he'd be one of the most powerful magicians on the planet. There was even a possibility that he'd eventually match Merlin himself but that was unlikely since the aged magician had the power to level kingdoms and the wisdom to refrain from doing so even as he lost Atlantis, and later Camelot. He was still thinking hard when he pulled on his magic to initiate the transition between wherever he currently was and the medical centre at Gringotts.

/ Little Whinging \

Sirius watched his personal elf disappear with his precious cargo and eventually turned back to the now distant house that his godson had been living in for three years and pondered what he'd seen. The walk back was much quicker as he allowed his long stride to eat the distance in a way he hadn't felt comfortable doing while carrying Harry. The boy was scared enough as it was without adding in a jarring experience being carried by a total stranger, for he doubted Harry had any recollection of his parents or their friends. He'd been much too young the last time they were all together and things had gone to hell in a handbasket shortly after that. Trauma did strange things to peoples memories and he wouldn't be surprised if the child didn't remember anything from that time at all, or at least he hoped he didn't.

Going back he found that pushing through the wards was easier than it was before and wondered even more just what protections were in place. He decided to take a moment and see if he could recognise them, he'd gained a little experience during the last war and while he didn't count himself an expert he was certainly a gifted amateur. He noted the anti-apparition and anti-portkey ward that was set up in a pretty standard configuration but when he looked at it he couldn't see where the power was coming from, not at first anyway. It took a minute to track the wards weave back to the point where he instinctively felt the power should connect and found something he didn't expect. If he was seeing this right, and he admitted he could be wrong, but it looked like whoever had done this ward had tied them into some kind of blood ward.

He'd already admitted he wasn't an expert but he could give a few reasons why it wasn't a good idea to use blood wards. One, given the situation Harry would have had to be placed with a member of his family and if Sirius remembered right there was no one left on the Potter side and only Lily's sister on the Evans side. He certainly hoped that the warder hadn't placed Harry with her since he knew for a fact that she was almost phobic when it came to magic. It was certainly no secret at Hogwarts that Petunia Evans disliked her sister immensely, or that it'd been a shock to Lily when she'd received the news of her parents death along with a short note from her sister that she refused to share with anyone. James and crew being who they were weren't averse to snooping where they'd expressly been forbidden and so found out that Petunia had told her sister that she was no longer welcome in her life and that she should stay away from her if she knew what was good for her.

If Petunia still felt that way, and of transferred her feelings onto Harry then the ward wouldn't be worth the time it had taken to emplace. Such a ward would be almost paper thin and that should have been apparent to the person who administered the annual check-up for the ward. The fact that it had barely been visible against the other two wards bore out what he'd been thinking. Blood wards required more than that the people under it be related, it needed the bond of blood to blood that could only be found in a family. Either way whoever had been checking the wards was incompetent or uncaring and there was no way for him to tell which at this stage.

The other way he could think of subverting such a ward was to forge a blood bond with one of the people under the ward. There were a number of magically binding blood rituals that could be used even against the will of all parties. Once a person shared a blood bond of any description the wards simply wouldn't work against them, they could walk in a kill everyone and the wards wouldn't react at all.

Staring at the wards for a prolonged time with his magesight turned on was probably a bad idea but he'd had his mind on other things for a while. When he came back to himself he discovered a half formed idea floating around in his head, he found he vaguely recognised the blood ward. Not so much how it was formed but rather what the intent of it was in a general kind of way.

For all intents and purposes it was a detector ward, what it detected wasn't clear but one could guess from the fact that it was linked to the blood of the family who lived under it. It was probably an 'intent to harm' kind of ward, a useless kind of ward if it stands solo so he took that as a warning that he might have already triggered it. Sirius increased his pace while he revised his plan, he wasn't going to harm the family who'd hurt his godson, but he would teach them a lesson, yes that's what he would do and he'd do it quickly just in case someone had already been warned of his presence.

The second time he entered the house at number 4 he didn't bother with the niceties of unlocking the door he simply kicked it as hard as he could, which wasn't really all that hard but Little Whinging was a safe little village and because of that they didn't rely on sturdy locks to protect them. No they relied on there being none of 'that sort' around. Unfortunately Sirius Orion Black was very much that sort and had little respect for anyone who'd live their lives this way so it was only a few seconds later that found him pounding up the stairs three at a time. He entered the childs room and picked the sleeping boy up with a grunt, damn for a little tyke he's heavy. A moment later he was back in the hallway and kicking the door to the adults bedroom down.

The woman woke at the crashing sound with a muffled shriek as she lunged upright. She wasn't the only one to wake up at the crashing sound, the boy woke up as well and added his caterwauling to the mix as well, and that proved enough to wake up the whale of a man.

"Huh? Wha?"

"No time man! Get up! Wake up!" Sirius ran into the room waving his arms in agitation the best he could while holding onto a now struggling child, who while looking pudgy was surprisingly muscular under that puppy fat and managed to clip Sirius in the lughole with a waving fist.

"What do you?" the man began to demand before Sirius chose to answer.

"Fire! Come on move you great lug. The back of your house is well ablaze!" It seemed that fire was the magic, pardon it if you will, word as the adults looked shocked, a second later and they were grabbing for dressing gowns and heading for the door. The man stopped a moment later .

"Funny, I don't smell any smoke," he stated as they came out onto the landing.

"Of course you don't your nose is already full of it. Keep moving!" Sirius faked a hacking cough as he made for the stairs with the child in his arms. That alone might have been the motivation for them shambling after him as he made his way out onto the front lawn and well away from the house. It didn't take long for Sirius to feel he was a safe distance from the front of their home. It was only when they all looked back at the house that the two knew they'd been tricked when they failed to see any smoke billowing from the house and there was a decided lack of flames pouring from the lower stories of the neat home.

"Now see here…" Vernon Dursley bellowed like a branded calf.

"What's the meaning of this?" his wife added a second later as she clutched her son to her bossom. It was then that her mind, which had been taking details about the interloper, noted the unique state of dress that she attributed to 'Those' sort of people. "What's the meaning of this?" she repeated, "Albus promised we'd never have to deal with your sort if we took the brat in!" she said sharply. Then she reached out and grabbed her Dudikins from the feral looking man as if he were a rabid monster which wasn't far from the truth in her opinion.

She proved to be much sharper than her husband as it took him another couple of heaving breaths for his brain to catch up with what she'd said. It was fascinating to watch when a grown man alternates between white and puce as if he can't decide which emotion holds precedence.

With a certain finality though he settled on outraged as his skin mottled further and he sputtered, "We told him! I said we'd not countenance you lot coming around here!" Sirius had the urge to wipe his face as he was hit by a spray of saliva, to say the man was irate would be an understatement and if this was the way they felt about magic users then he could understand how it was that Harry had been so mistreated. One thing he knew now was that they had definitely earned any retribution he chose to inflict on them.

"Petrificus totalis," he watched in satisfaction as the muggles froze into a statuesque stillness and took a moment to savour the silence. "Since you've proved to me that you're such small minded and small hearted people that you would hurt a helpless child I shall reward you with a house that befits your actions," he hissed. Even as he muttered, "Reducio," he was wondering if anyone would feel sorrow if he misspoke the spell and used 'Reducto!' instead, he knew he wouldn't. Both would eventually be reversed by the ministry but the spell he'd used would be much easier.

"There you go," he pointed at the shrunken house that he'd reduced to one sixteenth scale, "Now you can have a small house to match your minds," he smirked as Vernon's eyes widened in shock. He joined them a second later as the water main that situated under the house suddenly found a lack of resistance and the pipes in the house disintegrated under the force of pressurised water. It didn't take long for water to start leaking from the downstairs windows by time anyone from the 'Order' responded to the alarms there would be water flowing from the upstairs as well. That wouldn't be the worst of it though as the water turned the ground under the miniaturized houses foundation to a boiling quagmire of mud that would fail to support the house for much longer.

"Ooops!" Sirius said, though from the tone anyone listening could tell he didn't mean it, that is if the fact that he was chortling to himself at one of the most successful pranks he'd ever pulled even if he didn't mean it to go this far. "My bad."

It was as the house finally began to sink that the rune array that had been hidden in the foundation of the house finally decided to trigger due to an overload of magic, the confundus charm totally misfired since the blood ward hadn't designated a target, the Fortis shield reinforced the walls of the house just like it was supposed to do, to little effect since the house was beyond the help of anyone and finally the alarm was sounded in a distant headmasters chambers that the property was under attack. It'd take four minutes for Albus Dumbledore to wake fully enough to understand what was happening and throw some clothes on before apparating to the rescue.

Petunia's eyes, the only part of her that could currently move, rolled into the back of her head as she fainted in shock at what she'd seen. The only thing that stopped her from dropping her precious son was that the Petrificus spell held her completely rigid. Vernon on the other hand was struggling mightily against the effects of the spell but didn't have much hope of defeating it, he had the willpower and rage but didn't have any magic to disrupt the spell with.

Sirius having done what he'd come to do walked over to the barrel chested man and leant forward. "Tell Albus Dumbledore that Harry James Potter is with the person he should have been with before he decided to play God." He didn't know if Albus had actually decided to leave him to rot because it played into some part of a larger plan or whether the powerful wizard had actually believed him guilty, and to be honest he didn't care. With the help of the Goblins both he and Harry would be beyond the machinations of the old man by morning. He also knew that Dumbledore would be methodical in trying to discover where Harry was and that would take time, even if he hadn't thought to disguise himself he thought Albus might dismiss him as a possible candidate for the kidnapping since everyone knew that it was impossible to escape Azkabahn so he'd go through all the other candidates first before finally figuring out that it was Sirius who'd done it.

Having given his parting message Sirius moved well away from the immobilized Dursley's and decided to take a gamble since it had worked at Gringotts, "Adeo 12 Grimmauld Place," he muttered and smiled as the green glow started to form around him, he'd been right, the wards wouldn't interfere with the ancient transport spell. Another plus was that he didn't think that anyone investigating the site would recognise it, or know how to track it.

Two and a half minutes later Albus Dumbledore, Supreme Mugwump and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot apparated into Privet Drive punching a hole through an already teetering ward array. Dudley who'd been terrified as he found he couldn't move, and that his mummy and daddy weren't doing anything about the scary things happening around him was momentarily distracted by the loud crack that he heard followed by all the pretty lights of a cascading ward failure. Albus on the other hand wasn't enjoying the experience as the power backlashed through the spells creator.

/ To be continued…. \

Authors notes:- Hi everybody! I'd like to thank everyone who's read the chapter to this point because you've made it through another one of my creations. If you've enjoyed my work, if you hate my work, if you're confused by anything or if you'd like to make a suggestion about the story please feel free to leave a review for me.


	4. Chapter 4

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, was in a state that few people had ever seen him in, in the norm he was unflappable while all around him were falling to pieces

The Great Escape

Chapter 4

Authors Notes : - First, and most important, PLEASE REVIEW, let me know what you think of my story, good or bad.

Renks asked if Dumbledore is an idiot, well….let's just say he was thinking that anyone who went looking for Harry with ill intent would get a nasty surprise from the rune array he left behind. That is if they were determined enough to work past the confundus rune he'd placed as a primary defence. It would have triggered for Sirius too, except that he's the Godfather of Harry, and in the wizarding world that's more of a blood ritual than just the words that it is in the muggle world. So that Harry and Sirius actually share blood, which fits into another part of my theories that Voldemort could have bypassed the wards as well if he'd known about them, but I feel he was off consolidating his forces at that time and so missed an opportunity.

/ Begin \

/ 4 Privet Drive \

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, was in a state that few people had ever seen him in, in the norm he was unflappable while all around him were falling to pieces. He was imperturbable, placid, calm and collected, the one in control. All of these descriptions would normally apply to the spry centenarian, but not today. Today was, while not a totally new experience, it was certainly one that was rare in the latter half of his life. He'd gone through perturbed when he woke to an alert that the house on Privet Drive was under attack of some sort, when he'd arrived at the currently vacant lot to discover the petrified Dursley's congregated on their flooded front lawn he'd panicked outright as he counted heads. A quick scan of the locale showed that numbers two and six were their usual 'normal' selves, but of number four there was no sign. A deeper magical scan while he approached Vernon bore out his initial assessment and showed that the house simply was not there, not blown up, since there was no debris present, it just wasn't there.

His hands were shaking so badly when he issued the counter curse to their petrification that he nearly missed the small family, he managed to clip Petunia with it though and watched surprised when the woman sank to the ground with a wispy sigh, the fat bundle in her arms wasn't going to be that quiet about it though and began to cry at the top of his lungs as he found himself sitting in an inch of ice cold water. The second attempt struck Vernon fully and the man was in motion since he'd seen what happened to his wife and he'd been prepared. Albus found himself hoisted onto his tiptoes when the barrel chested man fisted his robe and pulled him upwards so he could get right in the wizards face, his mouth opened and shut a few times and Albus would later swear that the mans weedy looking moustache bristled at him like it had a mind of its own. It seemed that after the initial plan that Dursley's brain had simply fused under the stress of trying to voice so many different concepts, anger, fear, confusion, contempt and a number of other wildly fluctuating emotions tore through his massive frame. Albus being who he was stood there bathed in the fetid breath of the fat man allowing him a little time to decide what his next move would be, but when such an action didn't seem to be forthcoming he decided to prod things a little.

"Calm yourself man," Dumbledore demanded, ignoring the edge of hysteria in his own voice in favour of noting the return to colour in the face of he disagreeable muggle he'd been forced to deal with all those years ago. The crying was also beginning o get to him, "Ennervate!" he called out and a beam of light struck the prone Petunia who woke with a shriek as she found herself to be soaking in a couple of inches of water that had gouged a stream in the middle of her pristine front lawn, the sound of her son pulled her out of her shock as she picked him up and tried to comfort him, which was hard to do convincingly when she was still trying to come to terms with what had happened to her beautiful home.

Being told to calm himself possibly wasn't one of the brightest moves Albus had evr made, "C-c-calm myself! Calm? You want calm? Y-your lot d-did th-is! What are you g-g-going-g to do a-b-b-b-out it?" The elderly wizard winced as Vernon's free hand punctuated each word with a poke to his sternum, if he didn't need to know what happened here so badly he'd have stunned the man by now. He didn't want to hear about any house, especially one that currently wasn't where it was supposed to be, he was worried about the current location of Harry Potter, which holds a certain irony since he'd been avoiding the place assiduously for the past three years so that he didn't give the location away. With the powerful emotions running through him the usual sparkle left his eyes and the cold ice blue slowly began to penetrate the diatribe of the irate Dursley and pulled him to a stuttering stop.

"Where's Harry?" A simple question voiced with all the chill of a glacier, it drew shivers down the large mans spine and he found himself releasing the mans robe and smoothing it down nervously. He then caught himself and was furious again, how dare this man come in here and….

"I don't know," he answered and continued snidely, "and frankly I don't care where the little freak is. I do know he wasn't with the man when he left." The dose of cold reality Albus had subjected him to had reset his control over his tongue, sadly said control was sorely lacking from his mental processes.

"What man? And where is your house?" that was another burning question at the moment, he couldn't begin to search until he'd eliminated that Harry hadn't been in the premises when….well whatever happened to them happened. It took Vernon nearly ten minutes to relate the story of what had happened, he could have done it in one but every time he thought of something else magical that'd been done to him or his home he'd felt the need to rant. Discovering that their home was currently at the bottom of what appeared to be boiling quicksand came as a shock and he truly hoped that Harry wasn't in there since there'd be little hope of him surviving. The description of the man wasn't heartening either, a tall thin man with dark hair and a well trimmed moustache wearing dark clothes and a dark cloak sounded rather too close to a death eater without their mask. He'd asked if he could take a copy of the memory but been refused point blank when Vernon had finally understood what he was being asked. Searching the area with his magic had found no other living creature closer than the next door neighbours who for some reason weren't awake to witness any of this, Abigail Figg had assured him that little escaped those self same neighbours, in fact the whole street was like that.

"You're not messing with my mind! No telling what I'll end up thinking if you do!" Having never met the man previously Albus was considering the man very closely, he sounded a lot like one of the blood purists that addressed the Wizengamot frequently only taking the opposing view. "Damn magic users think you can fix things and people without regard to their feelings, should have the magic beaten out of them at an early age," Vernon muttered under his breath, "Made a good start on the brat…."

"Please tell me you didn't try to beat the magic out of Harry!" Albus exclaimed shocked that anyone could even think such a thing possible. He considered his vow never to violate the mind of a muggle as he really needed answers more than anything else but found that he wasn't willing to run the risk at this time. Maybe it would happen but if it did he would only legilimens the man as a last resort.

"Course I did! You don't think I wanted that freak growing up as abnormal as the rest of you? What would the neighbours think?" Dumbledore suddenly felt every one of his one hundred and four years as he watched Petunia Dursley nodding in agreement with her husband.

"But that's insane! Everyone knows that the more you scare a magically talented child the more accidental magic they produce!" Albus hadn't been this angry in a long time, how could they act that way? He'd trusted them to care for their own flesh and blood. No wizarding family would ever treat a child in such a manner, it only ever seemed to happen in muggle/magical relationships. If news that 'The boy who lived' was a victim of this kind of abuse then he might as well capitulate at the next Wizengamot assembly when they re-introduced laws that would allow, nay demand, the removal of all magical talented children from contact with their muggle parents. The trauma would be horrific and would probably incite rebellion, but then that seemed to be the whole point of the Purebloods. They wished to return rule of the wizarding world to the Lords and Ladies, and if they could smash the Ministry in the process well that would just be a bonus.

"Your lot might know that! But none of them stuck around to tell us when you left the boy on our step. All we got was a little note dropped on our doorstep!" Vernon looked on the verge of having an apoplectic seizure when he considered that they could have had a family that appeared normal if they'd just been told that. They'd hidden that from him so that he'd appear stupid, he just knew it, and all the years they'd been subjected to those magic tricks the adult wizards must have been laughing their arses off. It just cemented his opinion that not only were wizards freaks but they were evil freaks too.

Dumbledore was a little shocked when he thought about what he'd just learned, he'd just always assumed that everyone knew it and he'd left these unsuspecting muggles with Harry, a strong magical child without the knowledge to deal with him. Having just learned of their prejudices he could only attempt to fathom what kind of hell he'd subjected the child to. Minerva had been right all those years ago, they were not good guardians for Harry, or for any child he thought as he took another look at their own son. He'd been a fool, he'd thought that all he'd needed was a blood connection to protect Harry. He'd thought Harry would be safe and well cared for, and taken that for granted….

Several popping sounds distracted him from further thoughts of self castigation and he whirled around with his wand levelled at the new arrivals. The fact that only the 'Order' knew about this location, and that only the most highly placed at that he should have known who had arrived but his nerves were frayed rather badly. It was a relief for him when he saw Alastor Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt who quickly located him and strode over.

"What's happening Albus?" Kingsley asked. He was looking around the scene curiously but nowhere near as much as Moody who was tracking his eye motion with his wand at the ready. Alastor had already made note that the neighbours were for some reason still abed even with all the ruckus happening outside. It'd take a while before anyone noted the magic residue that'd passed through the area when the ward array went down and a few hours longer to figure that the confundus runes had contributed to putting their minds to sleep when it shorted with something else.

"Alastor? When I arrived I discovered that the house in which young Harry abides had been shrunk and for some reason sunk into that sinkhole over there," he pointed out the water roiling in the distance, "I've done a search for Harry's magical core but couldn't find anything. I need you to take a look at the house and discover if there's a body down there." He'd never felt so tired as he did now, not even at the height of Grindelwalds power, or the first war fought against Voldemort. He did however take a little comfort from the knowledge of the prophecy, but only a little since if Harry did die then that would negate it as a valid prophecy and it'd mean that he'd done all of those 'oh so necessary' things for naught.

"Alright Albus," Moody stumped off towards the property and quickly turned back, "Stupefy," he murmured and watched in satisfaction as Vernon Dursley who'd been about to attack the aged auror for doing any more of that magic stuff near his home crashed into the turf once more, he'd leave Shacklebolt or Albus to enervate the man since he already had his orders. He also ignored the scream that issued from the horse faced woman as she lurched towards her downed husband with the ungainly child in her arms.

"Vernon! Vernon!" he tuned her out as she tried to shake the fat man awake and turned back to what he'd been told to do, search for the body of Harry Potter, 'The boy who lived'. Meanwhile Kingsley and Dumbledore conferred.

"What happened here Albus?"

"I don't know, I haven't enough information as of yet. What I do know is that twenty minutes ago the wards here went down. Before that it appears that a man of unknown origin and only the vaguest of descriptions entered the premises for unknown reasons and attacked the Dursleys. Young Harry is the only member of the family not present and I don't know where he is."

"Have you checked for apparition or port-key traces?"

"Not yet, I was only in the preliminary stages of my investigation. I was hoping to find Harry hale and hearty before I began to trace the person responsible for this. Now that you're here I'll leave you to find out how he arrived and how he left, but more importantly where he went," his emotional control had been slipping ever since he first arrived and the air about him had started to crackle a little with magical discharges. He stood there for a moment before deciding to join Alastor in his search as it was the most important thing, they needed Harry, and some people would never know just how much until everything was over.

"Any luck Alastor?"

"No, or rather yes, if he's down there they've done a very good job of hiding the body. The wards that are holding the house together are still intact and running strong. If you're careful I think you could pull it up to the surface where I could make doubly sure though," the auror spoke in his usual gravelly voice.

"That sounds like a good idea," he wondered how over wrought he must have been not to have thought of it yet. Sending out tendrils of magic he penetrated the murky water and latched onto the house, it was only about a metre below the surface so there wasn't as much resistance as he'd thought there might be as he began to lift the small mass. A minute later the tiny house sat on a relatively dry patch of ground where he watched the grumpy old man stump around the house peering at it very carefully.

"No, there's no body in there at all," Albus sighed in relief at the news, but admitted that it'd entered a whole new area of possibilities, this had turned from a possible murder into an abduction and possible murder and he wasn't sure if that was worse or better for them. He refocused on Alastor as the auror gave a grunt and kicked the tiny front door in then stalked around the back and did the same to the back door where he watched in satisfaction as water poured out of the open portals along with small pieces of furniture and other knick-knacks that floated along in the deluge.

Dumbledore sighed, this was going to be a long night.

/ 12 Grimmauld Place \

Sirius Barely had time to register the fact that he was falling from the Adeo mosaic on the wall of his ritual room when he apparated away from the house he'd grown up in. He had places to be….

/ Gringotts medical wing \

The medical centre was bustlingly busy, medics of several different species were going about their business with a rapid efficiency that belied the chaotic look of things. They were easily spotted as the full healers wore dark green robes while their apprentices wore pale green so that no one would mistake them for a full healer and thus expect them to do work that was far above their experience. Harry didn't know any of this, he just knew that a number of people wearing green robes had approached him after he appeared and poked and prodded him for a while with growing expressions of concern and shock that this child was Harry Potter and he obviously hadn't been given the best of care as was his due.

That'd gone on for a while and then everyone seemed to come to a consensus and vanish as if by magic. Some of them returned a few minutes later with a number of glass vials. The first of them contained an orange liquid which he was told to drink down and with a tentative sniff and sip he decided it wasn't bad and drank it. He found after that that the next one didn't taste anything like the first one and couldn't help the betrayed expression on his face. The young medic apprentice giggled a little as she pulled out another of those orange vials and handed it to him as a reward and Harry was just as happy to take it and get rid of the foul taste in his mouth. He eyed the other vials warily, 'catch me once shame on you, but catch me twice and it's shame on me!' his eyes said as he took the second vial. He dropped that one as soon as he'd finished and was reaching for the next orange vial, that was actually worse than the first one by a mile. After

Harry was nervous, but as he'd been taught over the years he was stoic about it, he wouldn't show just how frightened he actually was for the fact that any show of emotion would be berated by the adults around him. The fact that he was merely frightened was a testament to his early training, any normal five year old would have literally been screaming the room down in terror at the presence of all the monsters and the few humans around wouldn't have done much to alleviate it with all the weapons and armour they wore. Harry on the other hand had become so inured to frightening things that it'd become 'normal' for him and no longer affected him emotionally, things that would cause terror merely made him nervous and it wasn't even the presence of ten or twelve Goblins, nor the humans, it was the fact that the room he was currently in was so much larger than anywhere he'd ever been. Even the bed was bigger and dwarfed his tiny frame and there were bright lights that hurt his eyes and….

Harry jumped in surprise as a slight popping sound that he'd come to recognise as the house elf appearing from wherever it'd just been, he'd been so focused on the room around him that and the frenetic activity. He didn't have a clue what was happening but when after ten minutes of him being left alone he began to look around and absorb things with the normal curiosity of a five year old, but with the cautious reserve of a much older person. Harry certainly wasn't prepared to leave the safety of the bed he occupied.

"How are you feeling Harry?" one of the medics who'd dosed him earlier walked over while he was occupied watching the elf. He was a little startled but so far no one had tried to hurt him, or at least not that he could tell. Harry wondered for a moment what the question meant, 'better?', better than what? Was there another way to feel? Well not that he'd ever noticed. It took a moment to comprehend what the lady meant but as he analysed himself he discovered that he actually did feel different, his tummy felt full for one thing and for another he was usually constantly tired and now here he was brimming with energy. The little boy didn't relate any of this though and just stared at the woman carefully as if to divine just what she was after, she was an adult and they always wanted something. She repeated the question in a gentler voice as if she might frighten him and Harry gave a tentative nod.

"Well that's good to know even if you had to drink all those icky potions. Sadly you'll have to drink them all again tomorrow if you want to get better," now Harry was frowning in consternation, he was feeling better than he could ever remember and now he was being told he'd feel even better if he drank more of that stuff? He didn't know what could feel better than this, but if all he had to do was drink some foul tasting liquid then he'd do it. He was so excited by the prospect that he missed the large black dog that had entered the room, until it stuck its big shaggy head around from behind the woman's legs with its long pink tongue lolling out.

/ Sirius Black \

Appeared on the Goblin approved port-key and apparition site(GAPAS) to find he'd been flanked by two guards, who thankfully weren't waving those pole-arms, that Goblin guards favoured, around. They weren't much for speaking, or maybe they didn't even bother to learn human, in much the way that most wizards or witches wouldn't bother to learn Goblin but they got the point across with gestures that he should follow them.

Walking through the corridors of Gringotts at nearly three in the morning was an eye opening experience. He'd have thought the place would be dead, or at least only lightly manned, a thought that was belied by the presence of nearly three times the Goblins that he'd seen during even the busiest day and he had to wonder just what they were doing. There were also a number of humans wondering around whom he could tell worked for Gringotts, there were all kinds wandering the halls, most of them looked like normal everyday business muggles while others looked like they'd fit in at the Leaky Cauldron or some of the seamier bars in Knockturn Alley. Then there were the well armed and armoured people who he'd first thought were guards but they wre too heavily armed for that, unless Gringotts was gearing up for a full scale war in the near future.

They walked down the first hallway and then turned right, then a left then another left, all in all, nearly a mile of walking brought them out into an atrium, though where it was in the bank he couldn't tell. What he did know was that it rose above them for five stories, and if he looked down over the railing he thought he could count another ten or more and wondered just how big Gringotts actually was. An impatient gesture had him following his guides down the stairs until they reached the atrium floor eleven stories below. Looking around he found the place to be well lit with those curious crystals that Goblins seemed to favour, they shone over the white marble slabs that the walls and floor were clad in, or maybe it was all solid marble, with magic anything was possible, and then felt his eyes turn to the unusual sculpture in the centre of the forty metre wide room.

It wasn't one of those ghastly wizarding monstrosities where wizards showed their supposed superiority to the other races, this was…well it looked like a ballistae, and a closer inspection proved that it was in fact a well preserved ballistae that'd been prepared to fire one of the eight feet long shafts.

"Fascinating isn't it?" Sirius heard from behind.

"Uh, yeah," he hesitated as he looked it over again to see what the Goblin had meant.

"In a way it reflects my people, a reflection that few wizards make when they see it. It is a weapon of war, much like my people, and it is poised for use at a moments notice." Sirius didn't know what to say to that.

"Uh…."

"No need to say anything in reply. It was merely an observation. If you'd care to follow me we can discuss several situations that have arisen," Ragnok turned to his guides and spoke rapidly in Gobledegook. He watched as they trundled back up the stairs before turning to follow the stoop shouldered Goblin leader down a corridor and into another plain room, "Welcome to my offices, please, take a seat," Ragnok said as he moved around the imposing slate desk and settled into the seat there with a sigh of appreciation.

"You look surprised Lord Black? Might one enquire?"

Sirius was beginning to doubt his eloquence when it came to dealing with Goblins since he couldn't figure out how to ask his question without giving offence. "Um, you office…." He trailed off not sure how to finish.

"Ah, I see. You wonder why my office is down here? Like most humans who come here I assure you. The answer is really quite simple though, you see humans see the height of the floor upon which your office resides as a sign of rank, while Goblins being subterranean see the depth of you office as the mark of your station. It's one of the reasons that Goblins and wizards do not have more wars than we have in the past," Ragnok steepled his fingers together as he watched the shifting expression on his quest, "But I digress, I did not ask you here to discuss the state of inter-species relations. We have plans for your escape to finalize," Ragnok stated bluntly.

"Er, before we get to that could you answer just one question?"

"If it is within my interest to do so then certainly."

"Exactly why are you being so helpful? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it, but as you were just saying, relations between out two species aren't exactly cordial."

"Hmmm, there are three reasons I suppose. The first is that given circumstances such as they are, it is the right thing to do. Secondly, there is the fact that both yourself and Harry Potter are wealthy vault holders, and thirdly you are mistaken to a certain extent, we are not so much helping Sirius Black and Harry Potter, more to the point we are assisting Lord Black and Lord Potter," Sirius didn't know why he should be surprised at that admission.

"So this was all about money?"

"No, while money is nice, and shiny and oh so warm when you hold it……" Ragnok's voice took on a dreamy quality for a moment, "Ahem, well as I was saying, believe it or not money isn't all that Goblins are interested in."

Sirius tried to hold in his snort of disbelief, he really did but had to settle on asking a question so he could regain his composure, "So what is it that you want?"

"I don't know how much history you know but I'll try to make this short. Goblins have a recorded history that goes back almost thirty thousand years, unbroken records, copied and verified as true copies. So we understand more than most that history moves in cycles. Since humans came into power nearly four thousand years ago we have noted that this cycle is between one hundred and fifty and two hundred and fifty years. Note for example that there is a Goblin rebellion almost every two hundred years, in fact the last one was one hundred and seventy three years ago," Ragnok paused significantly.

"You think there's going to be another rebellion?" Sirius asked unsure if he'd gotten the Goblins point.

"We do. In fact we know so, unless something changes in the current political situation we shall have no choice but to declare open war on your kind for the first time in history."

"For the first time? How can you say that? There've been all those rebellions," Sirius asked.

"They weren't all out battles, they were merely a guerrilla action. Small fights that showed our displeasure while soundly showing the Ministry of Magic why they didn't want things to escalate. I'd consider them no more than a political slap on the wrist. On the other hand, things are shaping up to a much worse situation than your Ministry trying to have us declared dark creatures, or confining us to reserves. Things have gotten to the point where Minister Fudge believes we shall allow him to take control of Gringotts, he believes we will cower before the might of the wizarding world," the sneer that was never far away from a Goblins expression was very evident as he made his opinion of that worthy known, "Minister Fudge is a moron." Sirius couldn't very well contradict him either since he'd just spent time in prison because of the man and his cronies.

"But aren't you outnumbered?"

"Do you really think so? Here in Gringotts alone there are eight hundred fully trained warriors, we have trained dragons, gryphons and chimera. There are even a couple of young basilisk in the catacombs that answer to us. Then there are our shaman," he stated to a surprised Sirius who hadn't known that Goblins actually had anyone capable of using magic, though he'd known they were very resistant to it.

"Uh?" was all he managed in response, luckily Ragnok decided to interpret it as a request to continue explaining.

"How old do you think I am Lord Black?" Sirius blinked at the subject change and then backed away from the question, he knew better than to answer any question like that. "To answer I am four hundred and ninety one years old and am far from the oldest Goblin here."

Well that was unexpected Sirius thought.

"You wizards go through two Matura Magicka, the lesser at around eleven and then the greater at around seventeen where you see a wizards power increase two or sometimes even three fold. We Goblins also have a Matura Magicka, in fact I had mine about thirty years ago. Currently in this branch of Gringotts there are two hundred magic capable Goblins, of which I am the youngest and possibly least powerful. That doesn't sound too threatening does it? Let me explain, I am possibly the weakest Goblin shaman here and I believe I could hold Albus Dumbledore to a stalemate if we were ever to duel. I'd like you to imagine, if you would, two hundred mages more powerful than I, thirty dragons and all of the other magical creatures we've trained to guard the vaults, plus six hundred battle hardened warriors loose in the heart of wizarding Britain." Sirius winced at the bleak picture the Goblin painted.

"But you're still outnumbered overall."

"Do you really think so? There are currently around two hundred thousand Goblins in Britain, and while you are correct, there are nearly four hundred thousand wizards and witches. I think you'll find that there are currently only around one hundred aurors, the rest of your kind have little more than a Hogwarts education. Very few wizards know any spells that are powerful enough to even hurt my kind. As things stand I believe that we Goblins could wipe your kind from the British Isles. We however do not wish to do this. You might be wondering why that is."

"Er why?" Sirius asked hesitantly.

"Because, while the British Ministry is unprepared for war, the other Ministries around the world are not. Oh I'm pretty sure we would still win, but both your world and ours would be in tatters. Besides an all out conflagration of that scale would render the Statute of Secrecy useless and the muggles wouldn't be able to ignore the existence of magic. With the way things have been going over the last thousand years or so that may happen anyway, and again it isn't something we'd like to see."

Sirius was getting tired of asking the question but was curious enough that he couldn't resist, "What do you mean, 'it may happen anyway'?"

"Would you say that Dumbledore is powerful?"

"Well yes, of course he is, I'd say that he and Voldemort are the two most powerful wizards currently alive."

"What would you say if I said that over the last thousand years the average power of wizardkind has been dropping? What if I said that a thousand years ago Gringotts had on record some four hundred wizards and witches who could match or defeat either Dumbledore or Voldemort in a no holds barred duel? What would you say if I told you there were eight wizards or witches that could hold the both of them to a standstill in a two on one duel?"

"I'd have to say you were crazy," Sirius admitted.

"Well it is the truth, we have statistical proof of it. Every time a wizard enters their vault their magical cores are read by the wards. Every so often there is an increase, mainly due to an influx of fresh blood from the muggle world, but on the whole wizards are becoming weaker. Soon they won't be able to restore many of the wards that keep our world secret from the muggles, give it another four hundred or five hundred years and there will be no secrecy."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Is it? We'd like to believe so as well, unfortunately for us we are not so blinded by arrogance and our own delusions of grandeur."

"Alright, lets say I believe you. What course of action do we need to take to avoid all this? I mean I assume you have some kind of plan?"

"Fortunately the Japanese and the Americans are working on the problem. They have attempted to draw the International Confederation of Wizards attention to their plight but the ICW has chosen to ignore it. They continue in the attempt though. The trouble isn't as simple as that though, part of it is the current education system is set up so as to make the population more controllable. Spells and skills that were once considered indispensible are not even alluded to in the current Ministry controlled curriculum. Tell me Lord Black, what do you remember of you history lessons at Hogwarts?"

"Um…..Goblins," he tried to remember another subject that the professor had covered but couldn't.

"Yes, exactly, Goblins. Professor Archibald Binns, does not so much teach history of magic, he teaches that Goblins are evil and untrustworthy. Do you think hearing for seven years just how bloodthirsty Goblins are doesn't have an affect on the perceptions of the wizarding world? Then there's defence against the dark arts, where they teach that vampires, werewolves and giants are dark creatures and should be reviled as evil incarnate, and that while the Ministry itself controls some of the darkest creatures known to the wizarding world in the form of dementors. The Centaurs are rather incensed that Care of Magical creatures classifies them as animals. I'm sure you begin to see my point. Getting back to what you have to offer us in return for our aid, all I can say is that we are hoping for allies in your community before it's too late, we will of course explain our ideas further at a later date. Also as you are about to seek sanctuary in another country, we would ask that you go to Japan. We ask that you learn as much of what they can teach as possible and then return to England with it. I'm sure I have given you much to think upon Lord Black so I will give you time to digest it, if you'd follow my aide to the infirmary I believe your godson should be almost finished with his physical. We will meet later to finalize your escape route."

/ Privet Drive \

Albus surveyed the street one more time before they apparated away from the home of the Dursleys which had been restored and dried out. The water had been reconnected and Professor Sprout had been brought in to repair the damaged garden. It had proved fascinating to watch the grass literally grow under his feet. All of that had been done and there were still a few hours until the sun rose. There might even be time for the Ministry to fix all of the spell damage done to all of the muggles within five hundred metres of number four Privet Drive. Alastor had been right, the breaking of the wards had indeed proved to affect all of the muggles and had been rendered magically asleep and confused by the powerful backlash.

Fortunately it wouldn't take much to negate the effects and since everyone had been so deeply asleep they wouldn't need to obliviate anyone. Well other than the Dursleys, from whom they'd removed all knowledge of magic and Harry Potter. When they found the boy and replaced him under the care of his relatives they'd restore their memories but for now….

"Well that's the last of it Albus. What do you plan to do now?" Alastor Moody asked as he stumped up, he took a twisted delight in the fact that his peg leg had left big ugly holes all through the Dursleys perfect front lawn. Dumbledore tsked disapprovingly as he watched the taciturn old mans antics.

"I take it you've found no trace of apparition or port-key use?" Albus asked before continuing, he already knew the answer since the elderly auror would have informed him in a moment if he'd discovered anything pertinent to their current predicament, "So apart from the faded apparition trail into the area that led us back to the Ministry approved apparition site in Diagon alley there is no other trace of magical transportation."

"Well there was that trace of an unknown magical signature. I've been wracking my brain trying to remember where I've heard of something like that but so far I can't think of anything. Of course I'll check the records as soon as I return to headquarters and inform you as soon as I find anything."

"Thankyou Alastor, I'll keep you informed of any other developments as they arise. Now that things are under control here I suppose I'd better head back to Hogwarts. As much as I'd like to stay and continue the search, there's no point until we have a concrete lead to go on and I fear that the day shall be long enough, what with worrying over young Harry's whereabouts, and just who abducted him," with those parting words the ancient wizard apparated to the hallowed halls of learning he'd cherished for the last forty years. Today's events had proven to be truly disturbing to him as he watched plans disintegrate, plans that had been laid for the last six years since he'd learned of a certain prophecy. He slumped back into the comfortable chair behind his imposing desk and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose as he felt a massive headache coming on.

/ Gringotts Infirmary \

Sirius nosed the door to the large room open and padded inside. The room while not being overly crowded was certainly busy enough, what with all the mercenaries the Goblins hired. Most of them appeared human, though it was possible that there were a number of dark creatures present especially if his sensitive nose was telling him right. There was at least one werewolf present and several vampires, each of which had its own distinct scent. None of that really interested him though other than to avoid any loose weapons laying around, no he was looking for a very distinct scent, that of his godson. The room was quite large but it didn't take more than a couple of minutes to track the child to a quiet corner of the room. It looked like the hardened mercs were actively avoiding getting too close to the little boy so as not to scare him and Sirius was quite thankful for that, he could tell that Harry was scared even if his little face remained impassive.

If he was hoping that the approach of a large black dog was going to have any effect on the child he was sorely disappointed, it seemed that Harry didn't remember him. Though the child did look at him with a certain curiosity, the kind that'd be displayed by any child of that age. Not getting the response he was hoping for Sirius didn't waste any more time in his animagus form and shifted rapidly until he towered over Harry. Watching the boys eyes widen in shock he quickly crouched down so the child didn't feel like he was being loomed over.

"Hello Harry," Sirius was surprised as the boy jumped as if he feared being spoken to by an adult. It didn't take long for him to figure out what that was a sign of, especially with his memories of the family he'd been left with fresh in his mind. "My name is Sirius Black and I knew your mummy and daddy."

Well that garnered a response as Harry looked up startled at the dark haired man, he'd never heard anyone speak of his parents with such a gentle tone. Not that anyone spoke of his parents all that often, mainly when his aunt or uncle was mad at him for something. "You did?"

"Oh yes, they were my best friends in the whole wide world," he didn't know how much Harry knew about the happenings in the wizard world so decided to start gently. "I've got so much to tell you about them." He couldn't help but smile as he looked into the eyes of Lily Potter, that same startling shade of green, like a living emerald as they sparkled with emotion. The hair was something else he remembered vividly from a couple of years ago, Lily had exclaimed that it was such a pity that her beautiful boy had been encumbered by his fathers hair of all things and he'd probably never recover socially. James had been rather indignant about that and had claimed that his son should be proud to have the debonair windswept style that had served the Potters so well in their amorous pursuits. Lily hadn't been pleased by that and had threatened to wash his mouth out with lye soap if he spoke like it in front of the baby again.

He would have liked to start to get to know his grandson better, and to tell him about his lost family but a tap on his shoulder drew his attention to a diffident healer.

"I'm sorry to interrupt Lord Black but we've finished our examination of the child and are ready to inform you of what we've discovered and a course of treatment."

"Um, okay. Would it be possible for someone to look after him while I'm away? I don't know, maybe tell him a story or something to keep him occupied?" He must have said it louder than he'd intended as a woman a few beds over looked up.

"I'll do it," she said in a surprisingly quiet voice as she stood up, and up until she towered over them. She was huge, probably Hagrids little sister or something, though she still had a lithe grace that she'd obviously learned as a swordswoman, it'd take a lot of grace and skill to protect a body of that size he thought irreverently.

"Uh, okay…." Sirius said intelligently, there was no way he was going to argue with her and left harry to his fate as he hastily followed the healer, though he did keep an eye on the unusual pair as the healer spoke.

"So what is it you wanted to tell me?"

"Well, there are a number of problems we feel you should be apprised of. First off, there's nothing that is permanent at this stage. Though we feel that if it'd been left much longer it could have been a major problem. There are three conditions that need to be immediately remedied. First he's malnourished, easily fixed with a few restorative potions, the other conditions tie into this one as well. He's suffering what the muggles call scurvy, that's vitamin C deficiency. That could have been truly dangerous, maybe even fatal if it'd continued for too long but thankfully easily sorted with a simple dose of orange juice….well quite a lot of orange juice actually. The most serious though, for long term development it the fact that he's suffering from rickets," the doctor paused and found himself interrupted by Sirius who was alarmed at the number of serious threats to his godsons health.

"Rickets? How the heck did he get that?" Sirius knew that the disease was rather common during the Victorian age when many people lived in dingy conditions and rarely saw the light of day, but that was a thing of the past. Nowadays it was a rare condition in a child Harry's age, then again he remembered where he'd found him and wondered if he could risk going back to the Dursley's and hexing them into the new millennium.

"Well I'd say that he's not been getting enough sun to produce the required vitamin E to be able to absorb calcium, that and the fact that the little vitamin E he is able to produce hasn't got much to work with due to malnourishment. As we said, it's easily fixable at this stage with these potions," the healer handed Sirius a list that had three potions on it and a list of instructions, "Now don't think those restoratives will replace a proper diet, they're to be taken with sufficient food or they'll only act on his bodies immediate needs. Make sure he also gets out in the sun as much as possible, visiting a park for a couple of hours a day should work wonders. Right, now to the more serious issues…" the healer stopped speaking as she began to wonder just how to impart this news to the man before her, he was already riled up and this wasn't going to do much to bring him back down. He must have noticed her hesitation as he prompted impatiently.

"Just spit it out. I doubt it can get much worse than what you've already told me," Sirius grated at the startled woman. He hated it when people tried to prevaricate rather than just get it over with.

"Right, right, sorry for that," she gestured behind her back surreptitiously and waited a moment for the people to get into position, "Well I know that injuries are often a part of growing up…but I'm afraid to tell you that the sheer number of injuries in your godson's case do not indicate a normal childhood. Rather they show that he has been physically abused over a period of about three years…." She stopped speaking as she suddenly found herself looking into the coldest expression she'd ever seen. Her only thought for a moment was that she was thankful that she wasn't responsible for any of the scars left on Harry's body.

"Go on," Sirius prompted as his blood turned to ice.

"Um, yes, er well you see, ah…." She swallowed convulsively, "We um, after checking him over we've found seventeen bones that have been broken or cracked and allowed to heal with what we believe to be minimal medical assistance. There're also a large number badly healed cuts, grazes and bruises showing that he's been beaten rather brutally so…" she trailed off again as his face turned to stone, and she swore the temperature in the room dropped several degrees as his magic began to swirl out of his control.

"I'll kill them.." the light glinting off the black armour he wore shifted as he prepared to turn around and head out of the room. Knowing that her superiors wouldn't be pleased if Lord Black left in his current mental state she gave the signal and watched as two figures appeared either side of the irate man. Once they were fully visible it was possible to tell they were vampires with all that that implied. When immediate violence didn't follow his apprehension Sirius began to struggle.

"Take your hands off me you vile blood sucking scum," it hadn't taken him long to figure out what his captors were, for one they were both smaller than he was and yet even as he thrashed in their hold they barely moved. Of course he was wasting his time, vampires were quite easy to kill if you had time to prepare, Sirius hadn't had that. It was well known that young vampires such as these were susceptible to sunlight, stakes through the heart(and lets note – that works for most known species), beheading(see prior note) and funnily enough fire though no one's quite sure why. Spellfire was pretty useless against them, not that they were immune but rather that they're so fast and agile that they're notoriously hard to hit and their reflexes to unexpected attacks are also super-human. The only way a wizard had a chance against a vampire was if the vampire was stupid enough to attack in a straight line and even then they'd have to be incredibly lucky since vampires moved so quickly they could cover two hundred metres in under four seconds. Taking into account the speed of the spells travelling you'd have a narrow window as the vampire crossed the twenty metre mark and if you got that timing right you'd have to also make sure of your aim since you wouldn't get a second chance.

Candice Merryweather watched as he continued to struggle with his captors, she didn't know what had just happened but she did know that leaving here in the emotional state he was currently in would be a quick way to get himself killed. It was one of the first lessons her merc squad had drilled into her, 'Emotions kill'. The healer in charge of the case didn't seem to be handling it very well so Candice stood up very carefully while cradling the child in the crook of her arm. He must have been tired because even though he was in a strange place, with strange people it hadn't taken long for the energy to drain out of him and Harry had fallen asleep listening to the steady beat of her heart. Walking over to the tableau with as smooth a step as she could so as to not awaken the child she stopped in front of Sirius who was doing everything short of frothing at the mouth to show his anger. In her opinion he was just shy of being hysterical, and well, it seemed to work in the dramas she'd seen.

(Crack) the sound reverberated around the room and the people who'd been studiously ignoring them so far couldn't resist turning to watch what was happening.

Sirius barely registered the appearance of the large woman who was looking after Harry, he didn't see her raise her free hand and he certainly didn't see it rapidly arcing towards him. He did tend to notice that he'd been slapped by a woman who was just shy of nine feet tall and almost five feet across the shoulders. He lost sight of her as his head swivelled forcefully to the right with stars shooting across his vision and a dull roaring in his ears.

And everyone froze in that moment with him looking at the vampire holding his right side, slowly he turned back to look at his attacker and met…those eyes, eyes he'd seen in his dreams while in Azkabahn. To which he'd vowed he wouldn't make the same mistake again, if the Gods of fate were to give him a second chance. To whom he'd made a silent vow to protect and raise to the best of his ability. Well he'd been given that chance and here he was not more than a few hours after rescuing Harry from a bad situation and he was going after someone else. The realization that he could have ended up in a sticky situation was like being doused in liquid nitrogen and he looked up at the woman who'd reigned him in with silent thanks.

Candice's only response was a silent nod of acceptance that had the vampires relaxing their grip. When she felt he was calm enough she reached over and handed a wide eyed Harry over to him.

"This is your responsibility now. Your petty revenge takes second place to him. Besides there are many ways to get revenge on someone and I'm sure if you take the time to think it through," she paused to watch a devilish air enter his eyes as he moved forward to lift Harry from her arms, "I'm sure you'd be able to do a proper job of it…and not get caught."

"Alright, I'll leave them for now, but I'm only deferring their punishment," the wicked smile that graced his face sent shivers down the spines of some of the hardened warriors in the room, they'd never seen a Marauder pissed before.

"I'm glad that's been settled, because there are a few other things you need to know."

"You mean after all that, that there's more?" The healer took a step back in surprise though she really shouldn't have been.

"Er, yes, though the muggles he was staying with couldn't have been responsible for this. Um, you knew Harry's parents well you said?"

"Yeah, I grew up with James, and I knew Lily for nine years."

"So you'd know there magical signatures if you saw them?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course I'd know them. Now why are you asking?"

"We'd like you to look at Harry's magical core and tell us if you recognise anything." Now Sirius was truly perplexed, what did Harry's magical core have to do with his parents magical signatures? It'd been disproved nearly a hundred years ago that a child's magical core was a melding of its parents and thus would have major similarities in signature to the parents. Everyone's core was like a fingerprint, unique.

"Please don't argue, this could be very important."

Something in her voice penetrated his confusion and he looked down directly into her eyes and saw that she was deadly serious. All signs of humour had disappeared, not that there'd been many to begin with, the subjects under discussion were rather grim after all. Deciding not to continue seeking information for the moment he began the arduous task of submerging himself into his own magical core, a feat that not many wizards could perform, though aurors had to if they hoped for promotion. It'd been a number of years but it was rather like riding a broom, one didn't forget, well not after one had grounded their magical core and passed out a few times. Closing his eyes he relaxed his breathing and felt himself detaching from the so called real world and sinking, it was really the only word to describe what it felt like, he descended through his body until he struck the void inside of him. The seat of his power could be seen off in the distance, an awe inspiring sphere that loomed over the tiny spark of awareness he'd become, even at this distance.

His magical core, which as he'd noted before was more ovular than spherical and as it had the first time he'd seen it it took his metaphysical breath away, that was where easy descriptions failed. If he'd known more about muggle science he might have said that his core looked like a nerve ganglion, what with all the thick corded ropes that led into it. He knew he could follow those ropes out to any part of his body and watch as they became thinner, like streams the further they got away from the sea. There were also three mighty rivers where the magic actually flowed out of his magical core, one led to his brain, while the others led to his arms and then onto his hands, they were the link needed to actually use the magic, and as he'd noted before the river that led to his right hand was noticeably thicker and more powerful than the one leading to his left. He'd tried at one point to even the streams of power out so that if he ever lost use of his right hand he'd be as powerful with his left, but it'd proved to feel too unnatural to continue for very long. Then there were the colours, the streams leading into his core were all pure white, they were just power, and when he'd started these exercises he'd thought that his magical core would also be the same. He'd quickly been disabused of that theory as his core was a riot of colours, each one conforming to a different emotion, a different event that had shaped the man he'd become.

While he was tempted to lose himself in the beauty of his core he knew that he had to do something else. This was the true practice that all of those exercises had led up to, the merging with his core. It was a transcendental thing that allowed him to look out into the ether and if he was careful he could observe other peoples magical cores. The theory was that each cell in a persons body created an infinitesimally small piece of magic and released it as a by-product of existing. The magic acts like water, pooling, flowing from 'high ground' to 'low ground'. That was what each of those pure white ropes that fed into his core were. Where it got completely theoretical was when the magic reached the core, you see a persons core could only hold so much magic and the persons cells didn't cease production of magic, ever. So that meant that sooner or later the magic should overflow, the problem was that it never did.

In general muggles believe that there are three planes of existence, the earthly plane, heaven, and hell, they might have different names in different cultures but the meanings are usually very similar. Spiritually aware muggles insist that there are seven planes of existence, the earthly plane, two buffer planes(one positive and one negative), then there are the planes of positive and negative elemental, diva and demons, and finally there's heaven and hell. Well they almost have it right, wizards being much better equipped to explore these things found that there are in fact seven planes of existence just as the muggles suspect, except they are set up differently. The outer four both positive and negative are as described, where it gets confusing is that the earthly plane isn't separated from the upper and lower planes by buffers(the wizards call them dark ether and light ether), instead both etherise planes overshadow the earthly plane. The spiritual cores of wizards and muggles show up on this spiritual plane, the more neutral the person is the closer to the border of dark ether and light ether they will be, the more a person leans towards positive action or negative action the closer they will rise of sink towards the outer border of the earthly plane until they cross that border and transcend their humanity.

Anyone aware enough may see these etherise planes and be able to see the spiritual cores of those around them, this was what aurors were taught to do. It was a dangerous undertaking since the person doing it would be completely vulnerable while they searched the ether. With this as a tool in their arsenal an auror could tell if a person was good or bad, or rather positively or negatively aligned, though it would only give them an idea of who to follow rather than tell them what those people had done.

Sirius 'opened' his eyes to the ether and noted that there were only a small number of wizards present and those had the 'feel' of healers, the rest of the room was a strange mix, werewolves, vampires, squibs and quite a few muggles which was a surprise. There was the usual mix of negative and positive cores, and when he turned to Harry to 'see' what the healer had meant he was shocked at what he saw….

/ To be continued \

A\N:- alright! Please don't hurt me, I didn't mean to leave it as a cliffhanger. I was going to cover what it all meant in the next chapter, but I did a quick word count and found I was at roughly ten thou words and felt it was a good point to post. Next chapter sees some discoveries about Harry himself, Dumbledore starts putting pieces together(will he do it fast enough to make a difference?) and the Goblins, did I mention them? Consider them thoroughly mentioned. Ollivander makes another appearance as well though not where you'd think to see him. Alright that's enough teasing, you'll see most of this in the next chapter, or maybe the one after this one.

Now I've got to admit I'm having fun with this, what with thinking up theories for different magics and whatnot. There's also a certain amount of fun playing with the characters in a realistic way. The illnesses Harry is described as having are realistic if you take the view that until he was big enough to do chores the Dursleys kept him in the cupboard and rarely fed him.

Now the really big question, I mean huge question, and it is, 'Do you guys like this story?' Whatever opinion you hold of it please don't forget to review and let me know. Any mistakes I make can be fixed if someone tells me.


	5. Chapter 5

"Your opinion

The Great Escape

Chapter 5

Authors notes:- Someone thinks I'm going to create Super-Harry, just add cape and crotch hugging undies! Tisn't so! Yes Harry is going to be powerful but that's more to do with the line in the PROPHECY that states Voldemort shall mark him as his equal. It doesn't state how or when they're equal so I'm going to use this to explain it and no I'm not going into detail before the story does.

/ Gringotts Medical wing \

"Whatever that is, I can assure you that neither Lily nor James Potter were responsible for it. What's your opinion?" Sirius asked, nonplussed at what he'd just 'seen', he didn't have time to be civil. This was taking too long and he doubted that Dumbledore was going to take the fact that his prodigal boy was missing lying down.

"Well I'm no specialist you understand?" the healer temporised, "But given the patients history and the colour of the anomaly and I'd have to say it's spell residue. Probably due to the Avada Kedavara curse."

"Damn! I was hoping you'd have a different, more sensible theory," Sirius paused to gather his thoughts, "If you're right what's that going to mean for Harry?"

"Well like I said, this is all a guess at this stage. Look, um, how much do you know about how the death curse works?"

"I know that it can't be blocked by any means other than a solid object and I know that it kills every time without fail. Up until Harry that is….Perhaps you could just tell me what it is you're getting at," Sirius asked grumpily.

"Alright, again this is all theory based on what I've observed of young Harry while he's been here," they both glanced over at the young boy who was listening to the woman holding him with rapt attention. Sirius wondered what they were talking about, it'd have to be more interesting than this. "So…What I believe is that the death curse attacks a persons magic, other spells effect the person physically in some way, but the killing curse is meant to affect the person spiritually. As you know getting hit by it is an instant death sentence, and that is because it stops a persons magic from flowing into their magical core."

"Then you're saying…"

"Exactly, whatever saved Harry Potter that night interrupted the natural course of the spell, though as we can see by this residue it didn't stop it totally. My best guess at this point is that the residue covers nearly sixty percent of his magical core and is constricting the magical flow outwards from his core, thus limiting his power output. I suppose you might liken it to a magical block. Like I said something interrupted the killing curse and stopped it from affecting his magic fully and that is why he's alive right now."

"So if that green stuff," Sirius shuddered at the memory of it, it'd looked like what he'd imagine liquid emerald would look like and it'd felt just as evil as the Aveda Kadavra curse had felt the few times he'd been in its presence.

"Exactly. Nothing can live without magic, the muggles call it bio-electricity. It's one of the fundamental reasons electrical things don't work around magic," seeing his blank look she decided to continue to see if she could clarify it for him, "Alright, let's see, magic and electricity are both forms of energy. Now in a normal household of muggles there isn't enough magical energy to effect the appliances that they use. The same would stand for a magical family if they didn't use any magic around said appliances. The problems begin when magic is used in a dense enough form to create a spell, the natural energy interferes with the ordered electrical energy, in this case the chaotic nature of magical energy effects the structure of electricity and the appliance can no longer use it.

It's one of the reasons that wizards and witches have never bothered with the muggles technology, it's too hard to find ways to suppress the effects in an area of high magical concentration such as Diagon Alley or Hogwarts. Many of the older wizarding families have wards around their properties and have used magic there for so long that the magic soaks into the surrounding area so they have the same problem. All in all it's much easier to tell the muggleborn children who enter the wizarding world that the things they took for granted in their old lives won't work here. At least it will be until the ministry actually gets off its collective arse and tries to figure out a solution."

"As fascinating as all that is, what does it have to do with Harry," Sirius asked snidely.

"Um, sorry about that," she chuckled nervously, "Didn't mean to natter on like that. What it means is that the curse stops the magic from flowing within the human body, and it stops it instantly. The problem is that we've never seen the true after-effects of the spell since once the magic ceases to flow in a person then everything dies instantly. Meaning that the cells stop producing new magic, the magical core dissolves and once there's nothing for the curse to act on then the magic used to create the curse disperses itself. There's never been a case like Harry before."

"What do you think protected him? Could it have been some sort of shield spell?"

"I don't think so, you see even though most shields form a shell around the caster they are still attached to the persons magical core. It's why dodging the curse is the best defence against it, those links from the core to the shield allow the curse to bridge the gap and attack the person. Even a glancing blow to someone's shield will prove fatal for that very reason. I don't have a clue what could have affected the curse like that but it answers so many questions for us."

"The only question I want an answer to right now is what can we do about it?" he was beginning to fear the thought that anyone who came into Harry might only be interested in turning him into a research project rather than attempt to cure him totally.

"Again, I'm sorry but I don't know what can be done about it and we don't have the facilities to conduct the research required to fix it. Nor, if the information I've received from my superiors is correct, do we have the time needed to find out since you'll be leaving the country shortly. When you do go we'll of course give you Harry's file so that others don't have to repeat tests that we've already done.

I can say in all honesty that I'd seek assistance as soon as possible though since we don't know what the long-term effects of this could be. It could, if the substance acts like a liquid, expand with his normal growth and have no great effect on his magical development. On the other hand it could act like a solid, and no, there's no way to determine that at the moment. If it does, then the effects could be varied, taking into account the worst case scenario, it could rupture his magical core. It's highly unlikely but still a possibility. Best scenario is that the expansion would eventually overcome resistance and the spell residue would shatter. More likely is that it'll force his core to expand in strange ways which could make his magic erratic, or it might constrict his magical core for the entirety of his life, he'd still be powerful seeing as his magical core is rather large in relation to his physical size."

Sirius was about to interrupt her with a question but she held up a hand to forestall him.

"I know you want answers but I'm really not in a position to give them. One fact I am sure of is that if things keep going the way they are he'll grow up to be one of the strongest wizards I think I've ever seen. Hold on a second while I double-check a few things and I'll be able to give you some more definite answers about that," he watched as the middle-aged woman stalked over to a desk against the far wall. Deciding to give it a rest for the moment Sirius joined the woman caring for Harry.

Taking a little time as he walked over he took in the appearance of…'What was her name? Did she even introduce herself to me?' He kept drawing a blank as he took in the appearance of the woman, he was sure there was some giant in her ancestry. Humans just didn't normally grow that large, she was as he'd noted before rather massive, though not unattractive in her own way. That wasn't to say she was beautiful either, striking would be a better word, there was a liveliness in her features that caught the attention of those around her and made them notice her. She was powerfully built as well, those broad shoulders could pack quite a wallop as his still stinging cheek could attest. Other that that she was much like many of the mercenaries he'd ever seen, heavy functional armour covered her torso, while a gorget(piece of armour that protects the throat) looked almost like a piece of jewellery though constructed from much more durable steel. Her weapons had been laid aside though he noted that they were within easy reach if she should need them and from the occasional wary sidelong glance he knew that she'd know if she needed them.

The next thing he noted was that Harry must have relaxed in her presence enough since he'd fallen asleep in her arms, and if the tender expression on her face meant anything then she was rather happy about something. A moment later she sensed his approach and looked up at him, dark grey eyes meeting his for a moment as she assessed him and then flickered back to Harry.

"Hello, name's Sirius, Sirius Black," he introduced himself quietly as he stopped by the side of the bed, he really didn't want to wake Harry up if he could help it.

"I know. Candace Merryweather," her eyes crinkled as she smiled slightly up at him.

"So how's he doing?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, he seems to be taking things fine. I was just telling him some of the stories about Merlin, but he didn't seem to be interested," she pointed at the sleeping child.

"Either that or he got woken up at some ungodly hour by an inconsiderate godfather and dragged off to some strange place," Sirius chuckled deprecatingly.

"Yeah I suppose that could be it. So are you going to be right with him now?"

"I should be…um, thanks for before," he hesitated unsure of how you went about thanking someone for smacking some sense into you, "You stopped me from doing something stupid."

"You aren't the first and I'm sure you won't be the last to rush off to try and save the day, even if the day that the saving could have been accomplished on is long past. You've just got to remember the important things and move on," she said calmly as she stood up with surprising grace for someone of her size. Bending down she placed the sleeping boy on the bed and pulled the covers up around him watching in satisfaction as he snuggled deeper into the warmth left from her sitting there. "I'll leave you with him then shall I?"

"Er, yeah, and thanks for that."

"My pleasure," she murmured as she began to walk away. Sirius sat down on the end of the bed and watched as she left the room, it was kind of surprising how human she'd seemed. He'd thought mercenaries were just that, mercenary, acting only for their own betterment. Thinking about it a little more he wondered if she'd received a payment of a different, more intangible sort from her interaction with Harry and then snorted at his philosophical musings. Leaning back against the wall he was almost asleep when he felt something nudge his foot softly then again a moment later though this time harder. He jerked back to awareness with a start.

"Unh," he grunted in protest as his tired body was dragged from its much needed respite, he might have taken the first potions in a restorative battery but that didn't mean he didn't need to sleep. He glared up at the woman standing over him, but she didn't seem to notice or care. "Whuz'a time?"

"It's six a.m., sorry I took so long," he began to wonder just how long he'd been out of it, "I just had to make sure that I had everything right. Now if I remember correctly you were an auror weren't you?" If she was trying to derail his train of thought she'd done a pretty good job of it with that total change of subject.

"Yes."

"Do you happen to remember your magical index?" she blushed slightly as she asked what was a very personal question referring to the test that quantified a persons magical reserve. Not everyone could afford to have the test done but for auror's the cost was defrayed by the ministry. The test would yield a number between zero and one-hundred where the number wasn't a representation of power but of core size in relation to body mass and thus a yardstick for how much magic they could do before needing to recharge. A person born with a magical index of ten would have the same index the day they died regardless of anything they tried. Every living thing had one even algae had one though it was an infinitesimal fraction of one on the scale which ran from zero to one hundred. Most non-sentient creatures had a Magical Index(MI) below one, though there were exceptions since there were many magical creatures that weren't truly sentient. The MI wasn't a measure of sentience though, just the sheer magical 'volume' of the being in question.

Muggles normally measured between one and six on the scale, where six might begin to manifest some 'gifts' such as telepathy or slight ability at divination but rarely anything reliable or that could effect the physical world. Squibs could be anywhere from five up to about eight on the scale, and this was enough for them to use most of the more common magical artefacts and manifest minor 'gifts' such a tele- or pyro- kinisis. That's where things got complex, wizards for the most part went from nine and upwards, though the most powerful recorded wizard was measured at sixty-two on the scale, Albus Dumbledore himself came in at fifty-one while Sirius…

"I'm a thirty-five," he answered quite proud of it, it put him amongst the upper echelons of magic users though he knew he was nothing exceptional.

"Impressive. As you know you've always been at that level, from birth up until the day you die, right?" she watched him nod, it was common knowledge that you couldn't increase the size of your magical core; not naturally anyway, there were a number of dark rituals that could do it but the price enacted on the person for doing them was hardly worthwhile. "If Harry continues to grow unhindered by whatever that residue is then he'll be truly powerful, at present he measures in at fifty-nine. There's a possibility that the spell residue is also constricting his magical core in which case he could actually be stronger than that though there's no way to know for certain until it's removed."

Sirius blinked a few times as he tried to assimilate the information, that'd mean that Harry was stronger than Albus Dumbledore, it meant that his cores diameter was almost twenty percent larger than Albus, that didn't mean he had a twenty percent increase in magical volume though, in fact he hated to think just what it'd mean. Given their relative power levels, it'd mean that Albus was at least four time stronger than he was, and that Harry was closer to seven times as powerful as he was and it might not even be the childs full strength. Of course Sirius knew well the folly of thinking that magical endurance could finish a fight. Not when a weaker but more skilled fighter faced him.

"Holy…" Of course it didn't really mean much more than that Harry would last longer in a duel or battle situation using normal spells, or that he could possibly use more powerful spells that others wouldn't even attempt. Knowledge and skill counted for much more in a short battle than stamina.

"Exactly. Don't forget though he might actually be more than a fifty-nine," she trailed off as she spotted a young goblin enter the infirmary with a sheath of parchment clutched in his hand. The youth looked around and upon seeing Sirius he stalked over at a fast pace.

"For you Lord Black. It's urgent," message delivered the goblin turned on his heel without a backwards glance and headed for the door leaving Sirius looking at the heavy parchment in his hands. Breaking the seal he read….

_Lord Black,_

_I am afraid that your plans must be hastened as I have just received communiqué from Albus Dumbledore 'requesting' audience with me as soon as Gringotts opens its doors this morn. This being the case I would advise you to make your way to my offices as soon as possible so that your stay with us may be finalised._

_Ragnok._

Sirius looked around for the healer and found that she hadn't moved while he'd been reading, "Sorry about this but I don't have time to talk at the moment. I need to get Harry and leave as soon as possible." He didn't know what Dumbledore could do once he was here, or why he'd even come here but there was a chance that the elderly wizard knew about the Goblins ability to track kidnapped children and was going to make use of that service.

"If you leave Harry here you'll be able to move faster, you can come back for him just before you leave. I'll take the time to prepare that file for you and arrange for the rest of the potions he'll need to fully recover from his mistreatment." Sirius felt torn at the thought of leaving his godchild here for even a short time but the healer was right, he could move faster and thus prepare better than if he was trying to carry a sleeping child. "Besides, the sleep he's in now is as much restorative as it is restive. He should, barring rough handling, remain asleep for anywhere between twelve and fourteen hours. The length of time he'll remain asleep will get shorter as his body fully repairs the damage done to it, until he's sleeping normally again."

As she'd been speaking she'd been chivvying him towards the door where he finally decided that it'd be easier to go with the flow than argue with a healer. It seemed to be a prerequisite of the job that healers were universally feared for their bossiness, he still had fond memories of Madam Pomphrey and the care she'd taken of him in his Hogwarts years.

/ Hogwarts \

Albus couldn't remember a time that he'd been this weary, or it would be more correct to say not in recent memory, there had been a couple of wars he'd taken part in that had been as draining. There was just something about knowing that he'd failed, both the memory of the Potter's and the wizarding community. Others might think that the last war was the last they'd see of Voldemort but he knew better. He knew the prophecy hadn't related to that particular incident, it related to something in the nebulous future, but like many he'd known an instant of hope before the reality had crashed down upon him.

Somewhere out there he knew the spectre of Voldemort lay in wait for a time when he could return to a semblance of life. The headmaster for all his hyperbole hadn't shared all his information with the Ministry, he hadn't told them about the memories he held from a certain potions master that pertained to the dark art of creating Horcrux and so they had no idea what was coming. Harry had been his ace in the hole against that imminent return and now there was nothing, when that monster returned there would be no one here to face him and the wizarding world would fall….

"I won't allow it!" his hand clenched spasmodically crushing the quill in his hand and spurting the ink it contained all over the parchment he'd been listing possible courses of actions on. Fawkes looked up from his perch and gave an inquisitive chirp.

"I can't believe that Fawkes. He must be alive, and he must be in a position to act in the future, else the prophecy would be false, and we both know it isn't. My fear is he's been taken by one of the dark families to bolster their position when 'He' returns." He waited a moment after he finished as Fawkes once again chirped and then continued with a derisive trill.

"Well no I suppose it doesn't have to be a dark family, and no I'm not omniscient, but I do know what I'm talking about here. The only way someone should be able to know that Voldemort will return is if they were in league with the Dark Lord and knew of his ultimate plans." Albus totally missed the fact that he personally knew the Dark Lord planned to return and he wasn't in league with Voldemort. Fawkes chirped a couple of times and Albus cocked his ear to better hear him.

"I'll have to concede that point Fawkes, it really doesn't matter until I actually find Harry. I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out….well yes he is the heir of a family," Albus answered the Phoenix as it had interrupted his prior response, "Gimberel you say? Hmmm, where have I heard of that before?"

Dumbledore sat back in his plush chair and wracked his brain before turning back to Fawkes, "Do you know where I'd find one?" The red and gold feathered bird hopped from foot to foot excitedly as it replied. "Really? The Goblins you say? Now why didn't I think of that?" Suddenly reanimated he reached across the desk for a new quill since he'd mangled his last one and a fresh sheet of parchment and began writing rapidly.

/ Gringotts – Ragnok \

Ragnok glared down at the parchment in his hands and growled, 'To whom it may concern,' indeed. The man should know better than that by now after all he was over a century old, but then again it wasn't uncommon for wizards to have a blind spot where any of the so called inferior species were concerned no matter how enlightened the wizard was supposed to be. It was a matter of treaty that all after hours urgent enquiries needed to be sent directly to the director of the bank so that he could assess the necessity of opening the doors. The fact that the old man hadn't even bothered to inform him what the matter entailed was a deciding factor.

Dear sir,

In answer to your request to open prior to business hours. I find that there is insufficient reason expressed to do so, if you wish to be more forthcoming with information into the seriousness of this matter please don't hesitate to let me know. Failing that please note that Gringotts opens its doors for trade at 7 a.m. sharp, if the matter is indeed as serious as you claim then I can only prompt you to be waiting for that event.

Yours in faith,

Ragnok, Director of Gringotts (London Branch)

Looking up at the Phoenix sitting upon his desk Ragnok rolled up the scroll and presented it for inspection, "Please take this to Albus Dumbledore. You may inform him that I was extremely disappointed that he chose not to share the contents of his dilemma with me but given he has chosen not to do so I could not in conscience accede to his wishes in this matter," he failed to note that he personally already knew what the nature of the emergency was. Tying the note to the bird he watched as it lifted into the air and vanished in a burst of flame.

Fawkes couldn't shake the thought that the Goblin had been laughing at him the whole time he'd been waiting for the Goblins reply.

/ Gringotts – Sirius \

A brisk walk brought him to the door of Ragnok where he knocked, "Enter!"

"You called for me Director Ragnok?"

"Take a seat Lord Black, we do not have much time I'm afraid. I have just received a missive from Albus Dumbledore stating his intention to be here when the doors open for business. That means that you must be far enough away in the next two hours that he can not find young Lord Potter."

"How would he find him? He's behind some of the strongest wards in the world here," Sirius crossed his arms as he leant forward in the chair he'd been directed to.

"While that is true," Ragnok did a credible job of hiding his pride in the accomplishments of his kind, "There are exceptions to this rule. If Albus makes a request in the name of the International Confederation of Wizards we are required to do all in our power to assist him. In this case it will mean that we will have to hand him the same Gimberel that you used to find Harry in the first place. There are no known wards in all of creation that this device cannot see through, including our own since we wished to allay fear that we were responsible for any of the kidnappings. We have made ready for your use one of our branch portkeys to take advantage of one of the only weaknesses of the Gimberel and that is distance. I hear Zurich is a nice place to visit this time of year," the Goblin added conversationally.

Sirius looked down at the small globe on the desk, it appeared very much like the Gimberel but the glass or crystal it was formed from was a pale blue and it certainly didn't appear anything like the portkeys that the ministry created which usually appeared like the everyday kind of household junk that a family might discard without a second thought. This was a perfect flawless piece that formed a perfect sphere, which upon closer inspection had runes etched into the surface, there were literally thousands of them from what he could see and each one would need a magnifying glass to be able to read it, and so finely done that it didn't impair the ability to see through the object. It was an artwork as much as it was a tool and he gained a whole new respect for Goblinkind whom he'd deemed as a merely warlike species.

"Is this the portkey?" he asked guardedly in case he'd made a mistake and offended the leader of Goblinkind in Britain.

"It is. Please don't touch it until you're ready to depart as it will take you and anything that you're touching at the time. In the meantime there are more important things for us to discuss," Ragnok leaned forward and pushed a knot of wood on the tables surface and waited patiently til his door opened and a smaller Goblin entered carrying two trays made of wood which it placed on the table in front of Sirius, "One of the problems will be the timely transfer of your vaults to wherever you decide your final destination will be. We choose not to be like the muggle airlines whom are adept at losing peoples luggage, or having it arrive just as the passengers holiday is coming to an end. We designed a means that a vault holder, if they are wealthy enough may take their vault with them. This of means that if a vault is lost that Gringotts can take no responsibility since it was not under our care during transfer."

Sirius was looking down at the trays curiously, looking down he could see that the twelve by twenty four inch trays had been partitioned in two inch squares. Inside of which resided what seemed to be a number of pearls of various sizes which he found puzzling since they were talking about his vaults. He couldn't fathom how he'd carry that much gold even with expansion and featherlight charms, there were still limits to such things such as ten pounds of gold would still weigh one pound in real life while a bag two feet wide and three feet deep could carry roughly twenty times its normal volume. To transport both the Potter and Black vaults he'd need thousands of bags and that wouldn't even include such things as the miscellaneous items that accumulated in a family vault over the centuries. He must have looked just as puzzled as he actually was because Ragnok allowed his ears to perk up a little as he grinned at the disturbed lord. He got the feeling the Goblin was laughing at his expense, or at least the Goblin version of it.

He was right as well, Goblins don't smile in the same way that humans do. Humans bear their teeth as what some sociologists refer to as a 'deterrent', one that says I have big teeth and you don't want to attack me, and I don't want to attack you, 'see I have my teeth closed, but that can change' kind of thing. Goblins on the other hand don't believe in deterrents, if they see another Goblins teeth it is a declaration of intent and Goblins do not believe in being defensive. Ragnok's whole demeanour would be taken as rolling on the floor laughing his ass off if he'd been a human. None of that really mattered though since he was more concerned with the transfer of his vaults, what was the loss of a little pride?

"You still haven't answered my question," Sirius frowned.

"I see no need to when the answer is currently staring you in the face. Your problem has already been dealt with, I suggest you check the trays more closely."

Doing as he was bid, Sirius looked at the nearest tray and found that of the six rows of twelve partitions almost all of them were full of what appeared to be white pearls, labelling each of the occupied sections was a number that he believed referred to one of the vaults, checking the other he discovered that it was filled with black pearls almost to the same extent as the white tray. This time there was clear evidence that they were supposed to represent the vaults of his family since one of the smallest of them was labelled with the families trust fund vault, used solely for school age children, while another similar sized pearl proved to be labelled with the vault number of his own personal vault.

"Are you trying to tell me that these pearl things are supposed to represent the vaults we were discussing?"

"They don't represent anything, they are the vaults in question or rather the portals by which the vaults can be reached," he chose not to elaborate on that, it was secret knowledge that each branch of Gringotts was nothing but a façade, the vaults were not held at any location that humans knew of. "Once you reach your final destination you should hand them to the manager of the nearest branch of Gringotts, he will know what to do with them."

Sirius was feeling a little staggered by the possibility that he was currently gazing upon the net worth of two great families. One thing he didn't understand was why there were so many vaults represented here. Surely a family, even one as old as the Blacks wouldn't need that many but then he hadn't exactly been in his fathers good graces those last couple of years and there were probably many things he didn't know.

"You're trying to figure out why there are so many aren't you? Well in the case of the Potter family it is a case of the last dark lord moving to eradicate the entire family from existence. The Potters were once quite an extensive family, what with all the cadet branches of the family. Voldemort was quite thorough and methodical, the family was continually reeling from one blow after the other until Harry Potter's parents were killed. No one had had the time or inclination to consolidate the families holdings. The Black family is a similar story, except the family's destruction was spread out over a much longer timeframe."

Sirius Black thought about his families history and knew why it was that his family had died out. While the Potters had been targeted by a dark lord, the Blacks had supported the last six dark lords that had appeared over the previous three centuries. The Potter family had died at the hands of the dark while the Blacks had died at the hands of the light, a kind of ironic reversal really.

"But how?" he gestured at the trays trying to get his meaning across. The best compression spells that he'd ever seen wouldn't have been able to shrink his personal vault into a sphere measuring a mere five millimetres across, let alone one of the larger family vaults.

"We really don't have time to discuss this right now. I'm sure that the director of the Gringotts you go to will be more than happy to answer all of your questions," 'Highly unlikely,' he thought, "Now I shall arrange for young Harry to be brought here and we can begin your relocation," the aged Goblin reached out for a speaker tube and briefly spoke into it in Gobledegook. Sirius deciding that things were about to get frantic decided that he needed to speak to his elf.

"Kreacher?" He wasn't sure if he'd get an answer within the wards of Gringotts but it was better than leaving his personal elf behind. There was a gentle pop and a feeling of a presence behind him.

"Lord Black called?" the elf asked with a sidelong glance at the other occupant of the room and smirked as once more he got to use the formal appellation his master so abhorred. It was great knowing that he couldn't be reprimanded for it either.

"It's time to move, so here's what I want you to do, once we reach…I think I'll go with the Goblins suggestion and go to Japan. That won't be a problem for you distance wise will it?"

"No Lord Black, that won't be a problem. What is master needing of Kreacher?" He ignored the quelling look Sirius directed his way since he knew just as Sirius did that it was a game. Kreacher knew it irritated Sirius, and Sirius knew that Kreacher knew it irritated him but neither would stop playing because it just wasn't in their nature.

"I figure that as soon as either Dumbledore or the Ministry find that I've escaped and abducted Harry from their 'rightful' care they're going to throw a lot of resources into finding all of the Black and Potter properties they can. Dumbledore will likely only search them while the Ministry will try to confiscate them and anything of value they may hold. If they do, I want them to take possession of empty shells, I don't want the Ministry to gain so much as a knut from the sale of the properties. In fact I'd rather see them razed to the ground."

Kreacher listened intently to his masters instructions, even the last one. If it looked like the Ministry might manage to steal his masters property then he'd do everything in his power to make sure they rued the day they'd even thought to plan it. His master had even been nice enough not to specify what the 'them' that he wanted razed to the ground was and that meant that he could technically wreak vengeance with his masters blessing.

"I don't think that will be necessary Lord Black, I believe that given time we can hide them in the Goblin manner. Though it wouldn't harm you to consolidate the furnishings and such into a central storage facility until you've been fully cleared of your crimes with the international wizarding community. In that vein I propose that you use Gringotts, even if you choose to only take temporary possession of a large vault I believe that Kreacher would find it easier to transport something this size," he reached into one of the trays and pulled out one of the larger pearls, "than to carry each item to Japan. Not so?"

Sirius thought about it for a moment but in truth he could feel the elves relief at the thought of only having to make short hops rather than international ones, it'd speed up the job if nothing else. "Sure, it sounds like a good idea. In fact I'd rather have everything secure than otherwise. Do we know how many properties we're talking about here?" Taking into account how many vaults there were he was sure that there were many more properties than he knew of.

"Recessed into the base of each tray you'll find a journal, when opened it will list whatever you ask it to, if you own it that is," a short while later Kreacher was holding a hastily copied list of the Black and Potter properties with wide-eyed apprehension. Certainly no elf shirked hard work but this was ridiculous, there were at least a hundred names on the list and that was on this side of the parchment alone.

"Kreacher, I had no idea it was going to be such a massive undertaking, I, er, I think it'd be best if you searched for any house elves that belong to the families and enlisted their help. Other than that, focus on books, paintings and magical objects. Furniture and such can wait since we're only going to need so much of it. You understand? Get the help first and then strip the properties of books and paintings as quickly as possible." No family wanted to take the chance that paintings or grimoires might be lost, many such items held hidden information that was only known to that family and as such held great importance. Money was only money, but knowledge was often power.

"Yes Lord Black, does Kreacher have your permission to begin?"

"Yes," Sirius watched as Kreacher popped out of the room, "Right I suppose that's one problem solved, now all we have to do is head for…where's that portkey going?"

"The first leg of your journey will be to Zurich. That will give you time to decide where you'll eventually end up and arrange a portkey to your final destination. In the meantime there is only a very short time before we have to open our doors so I'd suggest acting with alacrity."

"Right, right, so where's Harry?" he picked up both of the trays and placed them in the special carry case provided by the bank and slung its strap over his shoulder. Even as it settled against the sleek black armour he was still wearing the satchel vanished under a disillusionment charm.

"He'll be here shortly. I have only one more question to ask," Ragnok looked up from his seat and gazed into the humans eyes, "I wish to know if you'd like us to put Albus Dumbledore at ease sometime after you are secure? Of course we will not tell him all details, only that the child is safe and with his intended guardian."

Sirius mulled over the question after his initial 'Hell no!' reaction, but then his Griffindor side kicked in and told him that he really should so that they'd know Harry was safe. On the flipside, the old man had believed he was capable of committing the heinous crimes he was accused of, either that or he'd known that he'd sent an innocent man to prison. Either way he wasn't feeling too forgiving when he got right down to brass tacks.

"No. I don't think so, let the old man stew until he finds out for himself. I spent three years in hell because he wouldn't stand up for me. I don't see why I should make his life easier, even if he thought I betrayed him I still had rights to defend myself and as the leader of a faction that I was a part of he should have known me well enough to know I wouldn't do something like that. Besides I think the self proclaimed leader of the light has had things easy for too long, he's been trading on his fame for so long I don't think he's in touch with the common man anymore…" he trailed off as the door to the room opened and admitted the healer followed by Candace Merryweather who was carrying a tote bag in one hand and a small carrycot in the other.

"Lord Black, as promised you'll find everything you'll need in the tote bag. All of Harry's potions are colour coded for ease of use, just follow the instruction sheet included. I've also enclosed the medical files I prepared for him and my thoughts on his conditions. I advise you look into removing the anomaly as soon as possible. Um, I think that's everything, oh and if you'll take a little medical advice I'd see a doctor yourself when ever it's safe to do so, if you don't mind me saying you look a little weary yourself," she said, which in her considered opinion was an understatement. She was extremely concerned about his health since even if he'd taken some restoratives his cheeks were still sunken and his eyes betrayed a world of pain, though not of the physical kind, "Oh and have a safe trip." She finished softly with a slight blush on her face at being so forward with a man she'd just met, there was just something about him despite his gaunt appearance that made her wish she'd known him when he was whole and hearty.

"Er, thank you," Sirius was a little rusty but he was pretty sure the good doctor was showing an inordinate amount of interest in him personally, and if he had the time he was pretty sure he wouldn't mind pursuing that train of thought.

"Ahem," the gruff voice interrupted their little conversation, "I'm sure your human mating rituals are very important but I have to inform you that our doors are now open for business and I've been informed that Albus Dumbledore is making his way to my office even as we speak. I would really advise you to leave now or all of your preparations will be moot." Sirius looked a little shocked as he hadn't realized how much time had passed.

"Right, um, thanks for all your help," he said as he picked up the tote bag and slung it over his shoulder, picking up the carry cot that held his most precious cargo he steeled himself for what was to come. His thanks to the Goblin seemed inadequate for all the help he'd been given, but then he remembered that the Goblins hoped it would be an equal exchange in the long-term and for once Sirius hoped that he'd have that chance.

"You're welcome. We shall keep in contact, now please depart," Ragnok said brusquely being the quintessential Goblin. The door to his office swung open to admit his secretary and he was glad that Sirius had reached out and touched the port-key in that instant as he saw the fuming visage of Dumbledore glaring at him through the opening.

Lord Black vanished in that instant with no one being any the wiser to his identity and the Goblin sighed in relief, if they'd been caught at this stage the repercussions would have reverberated through the Goblin nations for years to come. He turned back to the doorway and nodded to his secretary.

"I will see him now, please show him in."

/ Hogwarts \

Albus's gaze alternated between the wall clock and the parchment that resided on his desk as he fumed over the response to his missive. The Goblins had refused his reasonable request, him, the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW and the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. He was all for treating Goblins as equals, just as long as they treated him with the respect he was due for a lifetime of service to the magical world. He totally missed the irony of a meeting of equals that was beset with qualifiers.

Fawkes sidled along his perch as he regarded his perturbed familiar and wondered what he could do to assist, but the human was hard to help at times since he was so sure he was right. Besides he wasn't sure he wanted to get in the middle of this, every-time he began to plot someway to help, the feeling of unease would grow until he dropped the issue. He wondered what it could mean that the fates were making themselves known. They usually hid in the background and acted there to control the future. Now they were actively letting him know that they wouldn't be happy if he interfered in any way?

He watched as the man he'd been bonded to for more than fifty years rose slowly from his comfortable chair and approached the fire.

"Well Fawkes, it's ten minutes to seven, so I should leave now don't you think?" he waited for a trill of acceptance before continuing, "I do hope the Goblins prove to be more helpful than they seem to be at the moment. We must find him as soon as possible, it's imperative that we raise him right so he doesn't turn out like Voldemort." Fawkes regarded him through jet black eyes that sparkled in the candle light before the Phoenix voiced its reply.

"Well yes I see your point, we wouldn't be raising him so much. But we would be making sure he grew up in a safe place," his shoulders sagged slightly as the bird reminded him of the sort of muggles they'd left the boy with, "I concede your point Fawkes and we'll talk more on it later but for now I really must go."

Fawkes would have shrugged if his frame allowed for it, as it was he did the next best thing, after ruffling his feathers he tucked his head beneath his wing and feigned sleep until he heard the roar of the fireplace telling him that Albus he stepped through into the Leaky Cauldron.

Stepping from the flames Albus strode across the common room towards the back exit to the ancient public house where he'd find the entrance to Diagon Alley.

"Mornin' Albus," the wizard behind the bar called as the headmaster approached him.

"Good morning Tom, I hope your day is good, I'm sorry I'd love to stop and chat but I have urgent business I must attend to," Dumbledore called as he swept past the publican. Barely pausing for the hidden gate into Diagon alley to fully dilate he passed into the heart of magical London with a determined gait and headed for the crooked headquarters of the Goblin bank; speaking architecturally of course. The doors were as he'd been informed resolutely shut this early in the morning, the Goblins knew their customers very well from long association and knew that the majority of wizards and witches would never rise as such an uncivilized hour. Especially the purebloods who formed the cadre of most valued patrons of the bank. A quick tempus spell and he knew that the doors would open in just one minute, he spent the time looking around at the few brave souls who were awake this early and found that most were shopkeepers either here to get change for the new day or to deposit money from the previous days trade. He even recognised a few from the shadier parts of the alley.

When the doors opened he pushed to the front and entered the banks foyer as quickly as possible, he'd wasted enough time as it was and there was no way he was going to wait for a teller to deign to notice him. He stalked straight towards the stairs into the heart of the bank glaring at the guards who made to bar his entrance until they backed down. Not wanting to waste time with eleven stories worth of steps the elderly wizard simply stepped off into the air of the atrium and plummeted like a stone, a fatal occurrence for anyone in a normal world, Albus simply muttered an incantation and felt his fall slow as he neared the flagstones of the atrium floor, magic after all had its uses.

The statue in the centre of the room moved as he approached and silently tracked him as he moved past as if assessing the threat level and then went inert once more looking like nothing other than a strange sculpture. He knew better than that though, if security in the building had of deemed him to be a threat he'd have found himself dodging eight foot shafts until he could take the siege machine out of commission.

Certainly it would be better not to take any chances so at the approach of a lone Goblin Albus slowed his forward motion and waited until the Goblin also stopped.

"How can Gringotts help you today sir?" The usual snide tone was missing as the young Goblin spoke to him.

"I will see Ragnok immediately," he stated in reply ignoring the hiss of indrawn breath at his abrupt form of address and the fact that he omitted the director of the banks formal titles. Noting that he'd offended the Goblin he sought to soften his stance a little, he was well aware of the adage that 'you caught more flies with honey than vinegar', "I will of course recompense him well for his time and the services I need but I fear time is of the essence in this," he waved his hands vaguely trying to impart that while his business was important, this Goblin wasn't, at least not enough to be told what Albus's concerns were.

"Wait here human, I shall inform Director Ragnok of your most 'generous' offer," with a sneer that the old wizard didn't miss he stalked off down the hall its claws clicking on the flagstones. Not having any of that Albus decided to follow the retreating form so that he'd be close at hand when Ragnok accepted his deal.

Casting a reproving look over its shoulder at the impertinent human the Goblin pushed open to announce the presence of a 'visitor'. Albus peered through the open portal and glared at Ragnok for his part in delaying the hunt for Harry Potter. He'd totally dismissed the man dressed in black until he suddenly disappeared, thinking back he thought he saw a couple of bags in his possession. His curiosity was derailed though when the head Goblin spoke.

"I will see him now, please show him in."

Not waiting for the underling to summon him Dumbledore pushed past him brusquely and strode into the room to confront the leader of the Goblins. He'd never know how close he came to finding what he sought or how near he was to an escaped 'deranged mass murderer' since the Goblins weren't wont to tell him anything at this point.

/ Ten minutes later \

Albus fumed as he left the Goblins office, the Gimberel clutched in his hands, it'd cost him nearly a thousand galleons to 'hire' the artefact and it had proved useless. The Goblin had informed him after it had turned a deep scarlet colour that this meant that the target was currently beyond the range of their best detection capabilities. He'd barely resisted the urge to throw the now useless object across the room as he planned his next move. Given time he knew he could use the Gimberel to search the whole of Europe so he asked to take the sphere with him, with assurances that he would return it to them at such a time as he either found Lord Potter or that he gave up the search as a lost cause.

Twenty minutes later a heavily winded wizard finished climbing the subterranean stairs and made his way from the banks premises. Once past the anti-apparition wards Dumbledore vanished with a loud crack that any muggle would have sworn was a cannon blast.

/ To be continued… \

Authors Notes:- I'd just like to give a hearty thankyou to all those people who happen to be reading this, and hope that you're enjoying the experience as much as I enjoy writing it. One sure fire way to let me know if this is the case is by the use of the review button, please feel free to use it and tell me exactly what you think of me, both good and bad.

Next chapter might be out a little quicker though I make no promises, inspiration strikes when it will. Sometimes I have to hunt it down with a big stick and let me tell you inspirations are canny creatures that seem able to see me coming from a long distance and thus can avoid me pretty well.


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